


Marks

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Betrayal, Canonical Character Death, Concentration Camps, Cultural Differences, Decapitation, Dyslexia, Falling In Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Misunderstandings, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Prison, Revenge, Slavery, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-07-30 00:42:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 47,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16275668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Dandolo has been many things in life, and he has never forgotten any of them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This starts a big work, already written but in the process of being edited.  
> AO3 is not equipped to deal with two-level structure, but the whole story is divided into four parts, each containing individual chapters. When a part is finished, all of its chapters will be posted at once.  
> Each part is marked by a symbol... that is actually the title of that part. A _fancy_ PDF version will be produced when the story is completed.  
>  UPD: You can download the Fancy PDF [here](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JWW7HOZ2OXU_Y9UjfFfGPj2VDANOpVpH). It has a glossary.

 

‘Wake up, boy!’

Dandolo jumped from stinging pain that yanked him out of sleep. Dandolo couldn’t afford the luxury of a deep sleep. He couldn’t afford losing awareness of his surroundings—but he had fallen deeper than he should have and hadn’t been aware of Faradeas’s approach. And now he would have a long, long day ahead, with the sting of his master’s slap on his cheek and his displeasure.

Dandolo gritted his teeth and got up, murmuring, ‘No, master.’ He towered over Faradeas by a head and shoulders, though he was thinner.

Faradeas was a powerful man, but he had started going quaggy. His clothes were sand-coloured and painted with a pattern of red triangles, and though splendid, the fabric was dusty and crusty from long travel. Dandolo kept his head lowered, his eyes on the line of Faradeas’s tattoos: two sinuous lines snaking down from his cheeks down his jaw to his neck—and a round bloom of a flower on the left side of his throat, partially obscured by the collar of his tunic. Dandolo stared at it resolutely—otherwise his gaze would slide to the black baton on Faradeas’s belt.

‘We are leaving,’ Faradeas barked, ‘and I won’t wait for you.’ He stomped away, rousing everyone else with shouts and kicks and swearing.

Dandolo knew it was an empty threat. They wouldn’t leave without him. He wrapped a crimson blanket-scarf around his shoulders, trying to keep warmth of his sleep close to his body, and walked to the mouth of the cave and squinted at the horizon. The line of it was hidden behind a dark rusty mass that rolled and swirled.

It was suicide.

The storm season had been surprisingly quiet so far, but everyone in Noctis knew how fast that could change. Storm season was for recuperation, rest. The Black-Handed One didn’t forgive those who broke that rule.

And they were breaking it now, Dandolo thought sourly. Because their master couldn’t wait for the end of the storm season. Those who travelled during the storm season couldn’t claim insurance if they lost their goods or vehicles in a storm. Noctian merchants knew when risk was worth it, but storms were not one of those risks. If something—or someone—got lost in the storm, nobody would repay its cost.

Faradeas was so eager to get back to Noctis from Shadowlair ahead of competition that he had decided to risk everything, despite Dandolo’s warnings. He had known the storm would come. The first few days it was windy, but nothing their small caravan couldn’t handle. Three heavy sandsails, loaded with cargo, had maintained good speed, and the two scouting vessels flittered about, playing with the wind.

Until yesterday.

Dandolo had felt it like a punch to the gut. Like a cup of Ostrich Blood, rolling through his body. A pressure behind his eyes.

Yesterday, the wind had died out, and their master had spurred them on despite Dandolo’s protests. They had used the sunlight to charge the batteries and make up for lost wind power, baking inside the gondolas.

And then Frances, piloting one of the scouting asym-sails, returned from their venture behind the main caravan body, and told them about the shadow on the horizon. More accurately, they had told _Dandolo_ , getting their sandsail to Dandolo’s and using his call-sign. And _then_ Dandolo had told Faradeas. To say that the master had not been pleased would be an understatement.

Faradeas had ordered a brief stop—but refused to make a diversion to the Shadow Paths where they could at least wait it out safely, fix their dwindling water supply. The nearest Shadow Path lay away from the straight course to Noctis, and Faradeas wanted to get home fast.

Dandolo watched grotesque forms in the mass of the storm, like a pack of moles squeezed into tight space, pushing at each other. Like bags of jellyfish, death inside them.

They wouldn’t make it. They would be hit by it, and that meant darkness, no solar sails, and a gale so fast and fickle that even Dandolo wouldn’t be able to predict it. And even to know which way to go would be useless.

And sand. Scraping the covering, tearing sails.

Dandolo looked up at his mainsail. The _Ocio_ , light sand on crimson, was watching him. The feeble light of the day illuminated solar threads woven in the sail. Like blood vessels, bringing life to the craft when winds couldn’t.

Dandolo folded the blanket-scarf and stuffed it under the pilot seat. A cloth torn away was a potential life hazard. He didn’t push his sandsail out of the cave right away, though. Instead, he walked to Fran who was nervously flitting around their asym.

Dandolo put a hand on their shoulder, and they jumped. ‘D! Don’t do this.’

‘Sorry.’ He took a quick look over Fran’s asym, and remade the rigging of the mainsail quickly. The ropes slid well through his hands, and he tied the knot, ran his fingers through the rubbed texture of the rope.

‘Hey!’ They stood with their fists on their hips, goggles glinting in the light seeping into the cave.

‘If we get into the storm— _when_ we get into it—drop the ama,’ he told them.

Fran stared at him, then moved closer, hissing and pointing at his chest, ‘Are you crazy? I have books in there, Far would kill me if I lose them!’

Dandolo shook his head. ‘We will lose _you_ if you don’t. And reef the mainsail.’

‘Far will reef _me_ —’

‘Fran,’ he said evenly. ‘Leave him to me. All right?’ He tried to smile. ‘He won’t kill _me_. I cost too much.’

Fran’s eyes flicked to his cheek. It was still burning from the slap. ‘Yeah. Right. You _are_ crazy.’

‘Are you going to spend there all day?’ barked Faradeas.

Fran startled again, hands dropping, and Dandolo squeezed their shoulder soothingly, then turned to Faradeas, hiding Fran behind himself. ‘No, master. Last checks.’ He was trying to not look at the black, black baton.

‘I don’t think I assigned you to Frances’s sail, you brat!’

Dandolo slid his gaze to the slithering tattoo on Faradeas’s face, avoiding the flower. One day, he would get a face tattoo himself. One day. When he buys himself out. ‘No, master, you didn’t.’ He went to his sail, and when Faradeas stomped past him, he called, realizing futility of his attempt, ‘Master?’

Faradeas turned round. His sandsail was already outside. ‘What now?’

‘Shouldn’t we tie our vessels together?’

‘So that some idiot who’d lose their bearings dragged everyone out into the storm? No.’

Dandolo gritted his teeth and pushed his sail out. He had tried and he had failed. Sofia, pushing her asym, raised her brows, but he shook his head.

He covered his mouth with the end of the headscarf, the fabric in dire need of cleaning, put on his gloves and goggles. They fitted closely to his skin. He activated the voice-link. ‘Sofi, when I or Tan throws you the line, fix it, reef the sails, and drop the ama.’ He jumped into the seat, checking coverings, making sure he could reef in seconds.

A sigh issued over the link. ‘He didn’t agree to it, did he.’

‘I don’t care. My amas make me more stable. I’ll anchor you. Or Tan will.’ He changed to Tan’s link and explained to em his plan.

Tan didn’t reply right away, but when ey did, eir voice was strained. ‘We are going to be hit, right?’

Dandolo didn’t need to look at the clouds to feel the storm. ‘Yeah. In three hours or so.’

‘Shadow protect us.’

It wouldn’t.

Faradeas called the check, and Dandolo had to postpone instructing Fran. Faradeas was piloting one of the other heavy sym-sails, and Tan called eir sign from the third one.

Dandolo’s link pinged. ‘ _Paon_?’ rumbled Tan.

‘Yeah?’

‘See you at home.’

He smiled, though it shifted the scarf over his face. ‘Play me a song then.’

Activating solar threads, they moved out in a wedge formation, with Faradeas at breakneck speed at the front. Dandolo was baking in the tight space again, and if not for gloves, his hands would have slipped on the handles.

They were hit in two hours and thirty seven minutes. It rolled over them like wrath, swallowing them whole and making the whole world go red. A boulder the size of an ostrich tumbled by Dandolo’s vessel. The compass was going crazy.

He didn’t need it.

The wind was too fast. Dandolo stopped, reefing the sails at once, and pushed on the right pedal. Claws shot out on the sides of his gondola, staggering it, and dug into the sand. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tan’s ’sail doing the same, and then a magline shot to the side from it, attaching to Sofi’s asym. She nearly keeled, the ama destabilising her, but before Dandolo pinged her she lost it, and the wind picked the slim thing, carrying it away like a child playing with a disk.

Faradeas was shrieking something, but Dandolo cut him off. He couldn’t see Fran’s sandsail. Visibility was dropping by the moment, he could only see Tan’s vessel’s silhouette now. He turned on the link. ‘Fran, where—’

A shriek cut him off. Dandolo jumped in his seat, searching, looking around. Was it?.. He took the magline. A shadow appeared on his right.

‘D, can’t… Can’t…’ Fran was sobbing in his ear, the cries of the wind adding a strange echo.

‘Reef the sails! Drop the ama!’ Dandolo was looking, looking for the shadow again… There! It tumbled into view, the sails flapping but wind was howling so loudly in Dandolo’s ears that he couldn’t hear the sound. His goggles filled with tiny scratches.

He spun the line, the magnet on the end acting as a weight, and let it fly—but he missed Fran’s vessel as it was yanked away by wind again.

Undeterred, Dandolo pulled the magline to himself again and spun it once more, throwing it blindly—and it yanked him out of his gondola. He tumbled onto the ground, and tried to dug his heels into the sand, straps of his sandals digging into his skin. He couldn’t pull Fran’s vessel back to his own to attach it to the lock: the scouting sandsail was light, but the filled ama was way too heavy. The line was sliding through Dandolo’s hands, burning his gloves and then his skin, and he bit his tongue from pain, feeling like the pull would wrench his shoulders out of his sockets any moment. ‘Drop the ama!’

‘He’ll kill me, D, he’ll kill me!’ Fran sobbed.

Dandolo roared, skidding on the ground. ‘To the Devil with him! _Drop it!_ ’

He stumbled back into his vessel when the weight on his hands dropped. He stared ahead, blind from sand and darkness, trying to see whether…

Fran’s vessel was there, light and merry.

‘D, I… I dropped it…’ There was so much relief in their voice.

Dandolo let out a breath, then pulled them closer and attached his end of the magline to the lock on his vessel, then pulled himself into the seat. His hands were burning and full of blood. ‘Yeah. Yeah, you did, Fran. You did good.’

***

The sun began rolling below the horizon. Not that it could be seen, exactly, with the sand blocking out the sky, the world around them a crimson gloom. There was nothing to do but wait. They had enough solar power only to support short-range communications, but with the wind and the sun blocked out they couldn’t move.

The storm season was off limits for a reason.

Dandolo listened to Faradeas’s curses only distantly.

Faradeas would have sacrificed Sofi and Fran. They were free, working for a cut of Faradeas’s deals. Expendable, unlike Tan and Dandolo, who were his assets. Dandolo supposed that it was for that reason Faradeas had assigned the scouting asyms to Sofi and Fran. So easily blown away...

Dandolo’s hands were throbbing. He couldn’t even wash them or check the extent of damage. He slouched in his gondola, wrapped in the blanket-scarf, sucking on the straw of the water system idly. The storm knocked out all navigation systems, but Dan0dolo didn’t need them.

They would get to Noctis earlier after all, he supposed. Once the wind calmed down enough.

He would have to change filters in his mask, and sweep the sandsail.

When the wind stopped trying to tear them apart, they finally moved. It took them three more hours to get to their part of the canyon, Dandolo checking with trembling hands the current schedule of gates. By the gates he tuned in on Faradeas trying to prove that he had the right to enter Noctis to the Palatial guards. The city was sealed due to the storm. Oh, but Faradeas trying not to shout at them was a delight—of course, he wouldn’t want a conflict with the Palatial guards, lest it lead to a conflict with the Prince herself.

At last they were admitted into the city and led the sandsails onto the giant elevator that would bring them down to the docking area. Dandolo’s sandsail was still connected to Fran’s with a magline. Fran’s mainsail was in tatters. Distantly, Dandolo was calculating the cost of repairs.

There was no-one in the Docks except for a lonesome mechanic who was looking at their caravan with eyebrows raised over half-mask. Dandolo figured they were a pretty sorry sight.

He managed to haul himself out of the cockpit, hissing from pain. The blood on his hands had dried up, and he was thinking how painful it would be to try to pry the tatters of the gloves off.

A crash, and a scattering of steps were his only warning before Frances all but tackled him, throwing their arms around him. Dandolo kept his feet under himself and leaned on the side of his gondola and, despite pain, closed his arms around Fran in turn. Their body was shaking so much that their goggles, hanging from their neck, were rattling.

‘Start unloading the cargo,’ Faradeas barked from behind Dandolo.

He let go of Fran hesitantly and unclasped the security lines, but Faradeas added, ‘Not you. You, with me.’

His hands lingered on the coverings of the cargo. He didn’t want it. ‘Yes, master.’ He caught Fran’s gaze, Sofi’s frown, Tan’s nearly imperceptible questioning tilt of chin. Dandolo shook his head at em.

It was all on him.

Faradeas walked under the awning that was used to cover the cargo, lit a cigar. Dandolo tried not to wince away from the foul smell. Faradeas could afford good cigars—he simply didn’t bother. Dandolo tried to keep his eyes on Faradeas’s tattoo, the one on his face, but they kept sliding lower, on the flower, to the man’s side where the elbow-long thick baton was resting.

‘You shall pay the full cost of the lost cargo,’ Faradeas said at last, his voice lazy. The sentence was not even a question.

Dandolo kept his head low, but his fists clenched—even though he couldn’t close them entirely, his gloves still stuck and bloody. ‘Yes, master.’

‘And repairs of the sandsails will be on you also.’

He didn’t need to look at Fran’s vessel to see the torn sails, the frame like a carcass, covering scratched away. ‘Yes, master.’ They had spare sails, but it meant he would have to buy another spare and pay for rigging, too… Then, for re-covering of the sandsail.

He was focusing so intently on the baton that he saw the moment Faradeas’s hand slid to it. Took it out of its loop. ‘You didn’t think that would be all, did you?’ The hand thumbed the little switch on the handle, and tiny electric sparks raced over the length of the baton.

Dandolo licked his lips. ‘No, master.’

He didn’t scream when the first hits landed, though he bit his tongue again.

He lost consciousness only when Tan picked him up some agonising time later.


	2. Chapter 2

Dandolo came to his senses from a touch, and tried to scramble away—but his wrists were squeezed gently, and Tan’s voice rumbled, ‘Don’t move. It’s okay.’

It was not okay.

He took stock of his body. Nothing seemed broken—but then, Dandolo wouldn’t expect it to be. Faradeas had wanted to teach him a lesson, to punish, not break his property out of commission. Dandolo’s whole body was aching, toes to shaven head, and his sides were burning where the baton had hit him and the current had passed through. His tongue was swollen and tender, his throat scratched. He tried to swallow, but instead coughed.

A hand cradled his neck, small and cool, and helped him move up. He opened his eyes and saw Fran, face determined, holding up a bowl to his lips with one hand, their other supporting Dandolo’s neck. ‘You need to drink, D. You are dehydrated.’

Tan was wrapping bandages over his hands—by the smell of them, dipped in mole grease,—and Dandolo scooted up awkwardly, using his elbows. He accepted Fran’s help in drinking. His tongue stung from being bitten, but was cooled with water. ‘How long was I…’ he croaked, then his throat tickled again, and he drank some more.

‘Couple of hours,’ Fran said quickly. They weren’t meeting his eyes.

He looked through the open window of the small abode he had been sharing with Tan. Blue lanterns of the Palace were like starts in the distance. The scent in the air: peppers from a trip two seasons back, when Tan had discovered a small hole in the bag and it had spilt over eir clothes. The long triangles of flexible shutters, high above, fitted close to protect from the storm. The howling, now distant.

Home.

Tan finished with bandaging, and Dandolo tried to close his palms and winced from sharp pain.

‘You won’t want to undo all my care, _paon_ ,’ Tan frowned, packing the medkit.

Dandolo smiled, dropping his hands on the bedding. He was wearing only his pants, and they had covered him with his blanket-scarf that was wonderfully soft against his tender skin, and then another, much thicker blanket over it. Even though his scarf would smell of mole grease from the bandages and where it was obviously applied to the burns on his sides.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

‘Of course I won’t undo it, Tan. Thanks.’ He glanced at Fran. They were busy dusting off his goggles with a small brush. Dandolo let them be for now. He looked at Tan again. Ey had stripped off their tunic, leaving only a vest on. Scars over the tattoo on eir left shoulder, the same flower as on Faradeas’s neck, looked slightly inflamed. ‘Where’s Sofi?’

Tan sighed, putting the medkit away. ‘Far went with her to the Prince.’

Dandolo huffed. ‘In the middle of the night? Is he attempting to catch Madda off-guard? I could have told right away it would not work—’

‘I’m sorry,’ came a murmur.

He turned to Fran. Their shoulders were shaking.

‘Not your fault,’ Dandolo said, keeping his tone gently. They would need a new tunic soon: the one they were still wearing was torn in many places. ‘It was the storm and Far’s greed.’ He softened his tone more, ‘I’ll live, Fran. Not the first time.’

Not the first.

Fran sobbed and threw themself onto his chest. Dandolo stroked their back, ignoring pain in his hands, in his body. ‘Should have left Far long time ago, Fran.’

‘Don’t want to leave you two to that… that…’ They were hot in Dandolo’s arms, possibly running a slight fever from the worries of the whole travel.

‘Leave him,’ he murmured into Fran’s hair. ‘Buy your own ostriches, get into work with someone else. Fiorello is good, and he travels all over.’

‘And leave you here?’ Fran looked up, some of the light returning to their eyes. ‘Maybe I could… You know…’

Dandolo shook his head. ‘You can’t afford me.’ He forced out a chuckle, hoping to put Fran at ease.

Fran looked away, colour high on their cheekbones.

Dandolo stroked their back again. ‘I will be all right.’

‘You need rest,’ Tan said, getting up. ‘Come on, Fran. Let’s assess the damage. Far would demand it anyway. Dandolo needs rest and quiet.’

Dandolo nodded gratefully over Fran’s head. Keep Frances busy with work, that would stop them from thinking foolishness.

And Dandolo needed to think himself.

When they left, he moved down on the palette and reached for the datapad on the shelf near his bedding. He opened the file where he kept the log of his debt to Faradeas, and added his estimation of the cost of repairs and the cost of the lost cargo plus profits Faradeas might have gotten from selling it.

He looked at the total. His worth to Faradeas. It was an impressive figure, which might have been flattering but instead made Dandolo feel cold all over despite the warmth of the night.

He put the datapad away. Tried to lie on his side, but the burns hurt too much, so he turned onto his back again, bandaged hands on the heavy blanket. His blanket-scarf seemed to have survived intact.

He looked at the blue lights of the Palace and the walls of the canyon just visible behind. Music burst into life somewhere in the Caravanserail and died just as quickly. The Carnival was over for several weeks now, and he wished he hadn’t missed it.

Usually, they would be declaring the cargo now, making orders for the stevedores, and then retiring to one of the foodhouses, the Charred Mole or the Red Stalk, to exchange rumours and exaggerated tales with other merchants. Faradeas never forbade them that, if they finished all after-travel duties. His tools were supposed to work well, and they needed to unwind. Besides, boasts and rumours and talking shit could provide crucial information. Tan would play eir flute, and there would be silly jokes and clever quips.

But after this disaster… Dandolo thought Faradeas might forbid them to talk about it. His reputation would drop: some would consider him an unreliable partner if he was willing to risk everything on an affair that was doomed to fail; others would avoid him out of superstition, for breaking the storm season rules. Nobody wanted bad luck to stick to them because of acquaintance with him. All of that meant that Faradeas would see a drop in the number of contracts, and connections would be lost, not only in Noctis, but across all of Mars.

That meant, lower profits. Lower payment for Dandolo.

He would never get out.

He watched in half-daze as more lanterns were lit up, signifying the start of the day instead of the sunrise. For the duration of the storm the shutters would be blocking Noctis out, protecting the city from the deadly sand and wind. No morning fogs, no sight of the kilometres-long clouds, no stars. Dandolo liked the storm season—the season of stories, songs, dances—but disliked it at the same time. He was chained here—and he would be for many more seasons to come.

For his whole life.

He startled awake when the Palace guards turned on the big round lantern over the double doors to the Palace, and the sounds of the waking city started trickling in.

Pushing the blankets away and trying not to wince too much, Dandolo got up. He had preparations to make.

***

His friends caught up with him by the Red Gates. He hoped they wouldn’t, but it was, indeed, difficult to keep some things quiet in Noctis.

Beloved city…

‘You are not doing it, are you?’ Fran pleaded. They threw their arms around him, and Dandolo shrugged off his backpack and returned the embrace. He couldn’t not to. They were dressed in better clothes now, clean sand-coloured tunic, a crimson headscarf, and Dandolo moved his fingers over their back, even though his hands, bandaged and covered in gloves, couldn’t feel it. On Sofi’s face, he read disappointment. On Tan’s, quiet acceptance. ‘I need it,’ he said to Fran, and to the other two. ‘This is my only chance.’

‘But not during a storm!’ Their voice was breaking.

A howl raged outside, and Fran startled, hiding their face in Dandolo’s jacket.

‘I should go while Far is distracted.’

‘You are not even healed!’

Dandolo smiled at Fran’s affinity for stating the obvious. ‘I’m fine.’ He looked over Fran’s head at Sofi. ‘How did the meeting go?’

She shrugged. ‘No insurance. He knew the rules, and the Prince would make no exceptions. Though she said that if he attempted something like this again, she would deny insurance on all of his caravans, storm season or not.’

When word of the Prince’s threat would get out, Faradeas might find himself without any contracts at all.

Dandolo said to Sofi, ‘Get out of it.’

She nodded. ‘Already. I have arrangements. But,’ she smiled faintly, ‘will finalise it when you get back.’

Fran pressed closer at these words.

Dandolo tilted his chin at Tan.

Tan smiled—a small, proud thing. ‘The cargo will be sold, and I’m through.’ _Free_. ‘But I remember I promised to play for you. So get back in one piece!’

Dandolo let out a breath. Free, Tan would be free, and it was certain. He pulled back from Fran, and they looked up, big eyes wet. Dandolo smiled. ‘Leave, too, Fran. Faradeas is burning up.’

‘When you get back,’ they murmured, voice wavering.

A sinking rock was in the pit of Dandolo’s stomach. Faradeas still could try to salvage at least his money, if not his reputation. By selling Dandolo and his debt.

He had one chance, and that chance lay behind the Red Gates. In the depths of Noctis Labyrinth.

He forced himself to not waver in his smile. ‘When I get back.’ He pushed Fran away slightly, and they let him go. He hoisted the backpack on his shoulder, checked his goggles and breathing mask, then turned his back on his friends and walked to the gates.

The guards looked him over, and it was impossible to see anything behind their goggles and beak-like half-masks, but he heard sympathy when one of them spoke, ‘You know you can take any of the Palace ostriches on your journey, kid.’

Dandolo nodded, checking straps of his gear the last time. Making sure the knot on his blanket-scarf, wrapped over his hips, was secure. ‘I know. But I won’t bring an animal out in such a weather. So, set one free for me when the storm dies, all right?’

The guard huffed, the sound metallised by the mask. ‘Let it out yourself when you return. Good luck.’

They waited until he put the goggles and the mask on, then opened the gates just a crack enough to let him out. The wind and the sand and howling of the Labyrinth rushed into Noctis, drowning out the city sounds. Dandolo took a deep breath and stepped outside. He couldn’t even hear when the gates closed behind him, cutting him off.

The wind was not as strong here, the canyon enough of a protection, but it was still strong enough to push and pull at him. The sand and dust in the air were making visibility bad. He could see a few paces ahead and behind, no more.

Visibility would drop soon, if stories were true. Some said, an hour. Others said, three hours. Half a day. A full day. Some time—and darkness would come. It always did.

He walked he knew not how long. He had three filters for his mask, enough to last him three days—but circumstances were worse than he had expected. His water supply was enough for a few days, and it wasn’t as hot as it would have been without the cover of the storm. But if the mask filters broke…

He walked on, and on, and on.

He couldn’t see the walls of the canyon—but the ever-present compass in him, like a pull somewhere in his sternum, was leading him east. To the heart of the Labyrinth. He walked on, and on, and on, in the crimson twilight, the howls ceasing, fading out of focus.

He stumbled suddenly when he realised he couldn’t feel the direction anymore.

He always knew where he was going—and now, he felt lost, like something was taken from him. He looked around, trying to control his breathing, because he needed to be economical with his filters. His heart was beating in his ears, nearly drowning out the howls of the wind. He felt confined in his clothes, the mask, the goggles. Everything. Sweat glue his undershirt to his back.

The darkness was closing in on him—not the crimson of the sand storm, but a true darkness. Not the absence of light, but a presence. Of something.

 _Someone_.

He was being watched.

He swallowed, cinching up the straps of his backpack, and made another step forward. And another. And another.

Without a sense of direction, with light and sound dying around him, with the surface under his boots turning even. Featureless. Pristine.

He walked and walked further into the darkness, a supplicant, a pilgrim, the son of Noctis.


	3. Chapter 3

Dandolo was staring straight ahead, but unseeing, even though everything was sharply in focus. It was as though his eyes had the ability to see, but his mind refused to _look_. He was aware that his blanket-scarf was draped over his shoulders, and that almost all of his body was embalmed with mole grease. He was aware that he was sitting with his knees pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped over them. He was aware of a small settle under his body, the murmurs of the guards in the other part of the guardhouse. A clinking of cups. Steps. The smudged paint on one tile on the opposite wall.

And yet, he was aware of it from the sidelines, like it was not his body.

Beads rustled, and someone walked in. Dandolo tilted his head, seeing and unseeing. A part of his mind rummaged in his memory and pulled out information on that person. The woman was a former Auroran, a soldier or a military medic. Carrying a small neat box made of carved wood. Now, for many years, one of the three tattoo masters who could...

Who could...

‘Should tell the Prince to forbid letting anyone out during the storm,’ she grumbled, putting the box on the table near the cot, taking out various things: a roller with a collection of knives, small round boxes with carved ornaments, each painted with a different colour on the lid. ‘Traditions are well and fine, but a storm, it won’t do...’

‘I was there,’ Dandolo heard a voice say, and realised it was his own voice.

The woman looked up at him. She had tattoos lining both sides of her lower jaw, jagged triangles like teeth. One of her eyes was white. ‘Yes, kid. You were.’ Light of a small lamp danced in her eyes, on her slightly crooked nose. Broken, years ago, perhaps.

He startled, his awareness yanked back into his body—and he felt it now. Abrasions all over his skin, making the soft blanket-scarf feel wrong and too much, and his throat was raw, and his eyes were stinging, dry. His lips were tender and chapped. His breathing quickened, his face aching, his teeth on edge. ‘I saw... I saw...’ He shuddered, and pressed his face into his palms, fingertips over his eyelids.

‘Don’t try to describe it,’ the woman said. He thought her name was Equanimity. ‘Nobody can, and it gets worse if you try.’

A sound caught in his throat, high and pathetic and broken, and felt like it tumbled down into his chest again. His heart was beating so fast. He looked at her again. His palms and his cheeks were dry. ‘I was there?’ Dandolo wanted that numbness again, that detachment. He felt that he wouldn’t be able to take it all in otherwise.

Instead of answering him, Equanimity moved and pulled a part of the blanket away from Dandolo’s left shoulder. He stared at it.

It looked like a burn, a depression in his skin, as though something had been spilled down on his shoulder. It reached past his clavicle. It looked like ink, as though someone had rubbed tattoo pigment into the scar.

As though someone had put a hand on his shoulder, a wet hand, a black hand.

Dandolo looked at the tattoo master, words stuck in his throat.

She looked back. ‘It is enough of a proof,’ she said quietly. She opened a bottle, and spirit wafted through the air. She wet a swab of cotton in it, reached to Dandolo.

He reeled back, and she frowned. ‘You don’t want it?’

Want wha... Oh. He closed his eyes briefly, pulled the blanket-scarf up again, covering his mark. His _mark_.

He had been in the Labyrinth, and he returned, even though he didn’t... Even though his mind kept sliding away from the memories.

He looked at her again and nodded.

Equanimity rubbed the earlobe of his left ear. Then frowned, leaning back and looking at him. ‘How old are you?’

Dandolo looked away. He wanted to slip into the daze, but his mind was picking up speed. He knew _what_ exactly she was asking. ‘Thirty-five season, master,’ he replied. There was no point in lying: she would find the truth out, and lying to a tattoo master was not a wise decision.

‘You have no tattoos,’ she said. Her tone was flat, and it made Dandolo shift because he didn’t know what she would do. ‘You are a slave. You’ve done it to earn freedom? Was it so bad?’

He nodded, tight. Looked at her.

She smiled, picking a knife, no longer than a palm, from the instruments on the bed. Spirals were carved on its handle. ‘Well, you are lucky, starting your tattoos with the Noctis Triangle.’

Dandolo managed an answering smile. And when she made the first incision, rubbing the pigment into his ear, he finally realised that he was _free_.

***

It was the middle of the night when they were done with the tattoo. Equanimity put a small adhesive bandage on his ear and instructed him how to care for his new marks—both on the ear, and on his shoulder. After the procedure was over, the guards brought him and the tattoo master some water with added wine, telling him he had earned it.

He wished his friends had been there. After the numbness of his return, he was burning with energy, despite realising that his body was, objectively, exhausted.

He accepted the water and pats on the back even though it was hard not to wince. Then he excused himself. He wanted to find Sofi and Tan and Fran. Tell them everything. Or at least, everything he could.

He had spent five days in the Labyrinth. It didn’t feel like five days, but neither the tattoo master nor the guards had any reason to lie to him.

He had to simply accept it.

Already the events in the Labyrinth, everything he had seen, had begun to fade from his mind, like a dream, but he knew it was an illusion. It would always stay within him, and he wanted...

Walking out of the guardhouse in the spare clothes the guards had given him, because his own had been torn to shreds, along with the mask, backpack and goggles—except, somehow, for the blanket-scarf—he looked at the Red Gates. The storm was still howling outside.

He wanted to...

He shook his head, and turned his back to it. For now.

It was so strange, walking Noctis after all that, his ear stinging, his shoulder marked. Things should have changed, but they didn’t feel like they had. The city was quiet.

He wondered whether Tan had already left, whether Sofi had left, and where he’d be able to find information about them.

He stopped abruptly on the street.

He was _free_.

Dandolo shook his head. He couldn’t take it in. He supposed it would take time.

He went straight to his room. Everything was like it had been before, but Tan’s possessions were no more. A part of Dandolo was glad, but another part wished he had seen his friend closing off his indenture for good.

Dandolo looked around, trying to assess what he would need out of his possessions. His. He was his own person now.

‘So you’ve returned.’

He didn’t startle, but he froze, even if for a moment. Then Dandolo made himself breathe, trelax. He had nothing to fear anymore—and yet, he was reluctant to turn around.

To face Faradeas.

But he did, standing up. ‘Yes. I have,’ he said, and his voice was collected. His ear would heal, showing to the whole world his first tattoo, the Noctis Triangle, telling to those who understood about his venture into the Labyrinth. And under the borrowed shirt, there was another mark that would not be mistaken for anything else. The blackened touch that time would not destroy. The mark would not fade, would not blur.

Faradeas looked older than Dandolo remembered him. His clothes were in disarray, as though he had been asleep just moments ago. His eyes wandering over Dandolo’s body. Then Faradeas’s gaze fixed on his left ear—and his face turned ugly and grey. ‘You think,’ he hissed, ‘you think it get you out?! You think I would let you out?!’ He advanced, and Dandolo made a step back—but his legs touched the bedding. There was not enough space in the room.

Dandolo swallowed. He had the tattoo, he had the mark. He clenched his fists so tightly that pain shot up his arms, and he didn’t look away. ‘You have no right to hold me. I am free now. I went into the Labyrinth and survived it and returned. I am free.’

Faradeas made a sound and lunged to him. Dandolo tried to get away, but got tangled in the sheets fallen on the floor. They tumbled onto the bed, Faradeas’s weight pinning him down, down, a hand clasped over his throat. Dandolo tried to scream, but couldn’t, tried to crawl back, away, anything, and _couldn’t_ , Faradeas’s foul breath on his face, his weight terrible, unbearable. Dandolo’s whole body was on fire. In their struggle he heard the sound of ripping fabric, and glanced at his left shoulder. The shirt was torn, baring the black mark, and Faradeas’s eyes flicked to it, then on him again, red and bulging. The hand clamped around Dandolo’s throat, and Dandolo clawed at it, trying to pry it away, to get some air in—but he was weakened, and he was... His vision was darkening.

He felt the body shifting over his, and out of the corner of his eyes saw the black baton and sparks running over it.

‘You,’ Faradeas rasped right into his ear, ‘are not getting out.’

***

It was a blissful state, detachment. His pain, far away. His body, distant, not his.

The ruination of the borrowed shirt was unfortunate, he thought as he tried to pull it back on, but he would repay the guards for it, full price. He rummaged on the floor and found his blanket-scarf. It had a tear by one edge, but nothing that couldn’t be mended. He folded it and wrapped it over his hips. He checked the bandage on his ear. He didn’t want to look down on himself. The air in the room was choking, full of the reek of charred meat and burnt hair and cheap cigars.

Distantly, Dandolo felt his stomach churning. He found a half-forgotten bottle of water near the bed, downed it all in one go. It tasted of blood. He dropped the empty bottle on the bedding. The coverlet was speckled with dark red dots. Dandolo turned away.

The city was quiet and dark. He felt like he hadn’t left. He put a hand on his left shoulder and felt the edges of the mark. He took a deep breath, but even here the air was thick with the reek of charred meat.

The blue lanterns of the Palace were shining as ever.

He turned his back to them, went to the ladder leading to Faradeas’s house. Faradeas kept his assets close. The house was bigger than the quarters he shared with Tan, of course, Faradeas’s sigil displayed on the banner outside, limp now that the city was cut off from the world. A single light was dim by the front door. Dandolo picked the lantern, dimming it even more, and walked inside. He hadn’t been here that many times, but he knew his way. He went through the front room, to the big living room. Again that cigar smell, cloying and scratching his throat. A datapad was flickering on the low table by a settle, outlining Faradeas’s form on it. The man’s chest was rising with steady, deep breaths of sleep.

Dandolo put the lantern down on the floor, looked around. He found the baton kicked under Faradeas’s leg. He picked it up, surprised at its significant weight. The handle was too short and too wide for his hand. He turned his wrist, trying to get used to it. Then thumbed the switch.

Nothing. The charge must have been completely spent.

Dandolo’s sides were burning, and they felt wet, seeping into the shirt and the pants. he’d have to pay for both the pants and the shirt, it seemed. His blanket-scarf was crimson, but he hoped it would be spared.

He looked at Faradeas’s prone form. Got closer. His sandals didn’t make much noise. There were parallel lines on Faradeas’s cheek where Dandolo had scratched him in his struggles.

Dandolo stood over Faradeas. Lifted the baton. What an uncomfortable thing.

He brought it down. Then lifted it again. And brought it down. Up. Down. Up. Down.

He watched it from the sidelines with detachment of an observer.

It was a peculiar sensation.

The shirt and pants were certainly ruined, though.

He dropped the baton only when his arm got too tired and heavy. Stepped away, out of the widening dark pool.

The reek of charred meat was, finally replaced by another scent—the sweetness of blood.

Dandolo’s hands were heavy with it.

He walked out of the house, squinting at the many lights. He hadn’t noticed that the morning had arrived. His eyes were on the blue lights of the Palace. He went straight to it.

The streets started filling with people, but instead of the usual laughter, rumble, murmur, all sounds died near him—a dome of silence around him.

Such a strange thing.

The crowds were parting before him.

He ascended the steps to the main doors of the Palace. The guards standing before them didn’t move at first. Dandolo rolled his shoulder. The baton had been heavy and not made for prolonged use. Dandolo hled his wet hands in front of himself, ‘I have killed Faradeas, the sworn merchant of Noctis.’

***

It took some time to gather most of the Council. It was the storm season, and so the senior merchants, if they weren’t somewhere outside, had not much to do.

Dandolo wasn’t even restrained. They just led him into one of the side rooms of the guest hall of the Palace. He had time to study the etched walls, a thin dusting of red sand on the floor. There was a pebble by the wall, shaped like a half-moon. He had imagined his first entry to the Palace differently—taking his vow as a travelling merchant—but this, this was fine, too. He only wished he could look better at the tree in the guest hall. Maybe later.

He sat down on the low settle. The blood already dried up, covering his hands like crimson gloves. He kept them between his knees carefully and tried not to move them, because the blood started to flake and fall away. He wished it had stayed liquid. But the scent of it was still present. Soaking in everything, the Palace’s incense only barely breaking through it.

Dandolo lowered his eyelids, not thinking about anything in particular. Then the guards stationed outside the room called him to come out. They flanked him, but didn’t keep their spears or rifles trained on him. He looked up to the balcony and caught a glimpse of the Prince.

Outside, a lot more lanterns were blazing, big like the one above the double doors. Several of them were placed on the middle landing where the guards had escorted Dandolo. Many more were on the lower steps and all across the Caravanserail, in hands of people. There were so many people.

He was a disruption in the normal way of things. It was strange.

He stopped on the middle landing, and turned to the Palace. The doors were opened, and the Council was pouring out, stopping on various steps of the huge staircase, some leaning on the rails, others lowering themselves right on the steps. Murmuring, looking him over.

He didn’t think he had ever seen the Council in such numbers: it was difficult to gather it all. But it was the storm season, and many merchants were waiting it out at home.

Beloved city.

Dandolo’s gaze picked on the dishevelled state of some merchants. Evidently, they had been taken out of their beds. He was an inconvenience. He would rather sit down, too, or at least lean on something, but he supposed it wouldn’t be appropriate.

So he waited while people murmured, shuffled. The Prince slipped to the front. She looked more splendid than other merchants, in full blue, and Dandolo thought it was not the wisest choice, especially not with the Council and what felt like the whole of Noctis present. The Prince was chosen by Noctis, but not above it.

Still, Dandolo wasn’t the Prince—Madda was.

She was studying his face, and he didn’t look away. Her gaze slipped down to his hands. He didn’t try to hide them, but now more than before he wished the blood was still dripping.

The murmurs gradually died out.

One of the merchants—Dandolo recognised him as Artair, one of the eldest in the city—moved to the front, too. He was in plainer clothes than the Prince, a long grey tunic, a bracelet of linked half-moons on his right forearm. His temples were covered with many flowing lines of tattoos, and coloured glass beads glinted in his braids. ‘You said you killed Faradeas,’ his voice carried over the stairs and what felt like the whole of the Caravanserail.

Dandolo tried to make his voice carry over just as clearly when he said, ‘Yes. I did kill him.’

A murmur rouse between the venerable merchants, but neither Artair nor the Prince participated in it. Artair continued, ‘Could you tell us your name?’

Dandolo thought that they should have started with it, but he surmised the Council actually knew it already. The question was for Noctis. ‘Dandolo,’ he said simply. ‘I am Dandolo.’ To not add ‘indebted to the sworn merchant Faradeas’ took him a moment. He wasn’t that anymore.

‘Could you remove the bandage from your ear?’ the merchant asked.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ another voice sounded from the left. A small light flickered to life. Tattoo master Equanimity let out a cloud of smoke and saluted with her cigar, and in her movement the smoke carried over to Dandolo. Rich wood and spices. Flanking her, stood two people with the same teeth-like tattoos as she had.

Dandolo nodded to her.

Artair looked at her briefly, then back at Dandolo. ‘You have been to the Labyrinth.’

It was not a question, and what question could there be when the torn shirt on his shoulder didn’t hide the black pooling mark on his skin? But Dandolo still said, ‘Yes. I did.’

‘And you ventured there why?’

‘Because I wanted my freedom.’

More murmurs. Dandolo’s fingers twitched, and he felt more flakes of blood floating down.

The Prince leaned forward. She looked tired, but sharp. ‘How long have you been serving Faradeas?’

‘With this storm season it would have been twenty seasons, _me Doxe_ ,’ he said.

More murmurs. Many merchants exchanged agitated glances. The tattoo master quirked her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything, only puffing out smoke.

‘How big is your debt?’

Dandolo’s fingers twitched. He forced himself to not clench his fists. The blood would flake off faster if he did. ‘I would have never paid it off, my Prince.’

She leaned forward, seized him. He didn’t like it. He felt looked down upon, and it had nothing to do with him standing physically lower on the stairs. ‘You are older than twenty seasons, so it is not a hereditary debt. Then what is it?’

Dandolo suppressed the urge to lick his lips. He didn’t want to show any emotion. He didn’t _feel_ any emotion. Detachment was a useful thing. ‘I’m a sandsinger, my Prince.’

The Prince pulled back. Even the tattoo master hovered, with her cigar dropping ash onto the stairs.

Dandolo waited. He had all the time in the world.

He was surrounded by the heavy smell of blood.

He caught Artair looking at him. The old merchant definitely knew the base price for a sandsinger. Add to it even a middle-grade debt, and you would bind that singer for life.

‘Why did you kill Faradeas?’ Artair asked.

Dandolo closed his eyes briefly, taking in a deep breath. The blood settling in his lungs like red dust. Then looked at the Council, the Prince. Feeling the whole of Noctis behind himself. Watching. Waiting.

‘He refused to let me go and then beat me up.’

His voice echoed in the Caravanserail. He fell silent. His whole body was aching, but the sting on his left ear was keeping him upright. He had that. Ht had gone into the Labyrinth and had seen things that no words could describe and no mind could contain, and he had returned.

He was free.

A commotion lower on the stairs drew Dandolo’s attention, and he half-turned as he heard steps ascend.

He almost lost his composure when Fran came into view, light on the steps, ends of the headscarf falling onto their back. And after them, Tan and Sofi.

He didn’t want them here.

They didn’t even glance at him.

The Prince scowled at the interruption, but didn’t order anything to the guards. The tattoo master looked amused. Dandolo suddenly realised that the two people with her tattoos were Master Witnesses, too, like Equinimity. Judging Dandolo’s fate.

‘My Prince!’ Fran exclaimed. They were still out of breath, a hand on their chest. They swallowed and continued, ‘The Council. The people of Noctis. We, all three of us,’ they looked around, at Tan and at Sofi, ‘vote for Dandolo here. Faradeas’s last venture cost us part of the cargo—but if not for Dandolo, it would have cost lives, mine and Sofia’s. And it wasn’t the first time, and perhaps wouldn’t have been the last.’

‘But Dandolo has _made_ it the last,’ Tan added. Eir voice carried over the landing. Ey looked at Dandolo. Not at his hands. Ey smiled slightly.

Dandolo couldn’t manage anything more than a short nod.

The Prince exchanged glances with the merchants in her row, threw a look over the shoulder at the merchants standing up the stairs. Then looked back at him. ‘Merchant Faradeas had no right to deny you freedom, Dandolo, and to raise his hand on you. He should have set you free seasons ago according to the tradition. The city considers your debt to him void, as per the Rule of the Red Gate. Your return from the Labyrinth has been witnessed. You are free.’ A murmur rouse again, mostly from below, but the Prince talked over it, ‘As a compensation, the city offers you the deceased Faradeas’s assets—and his contracts and obligations, too. But you can only fulfil them when—if—you are sworn in. Do you accept?’

Dandolo’s gaze flicked to the tattoo master. She saluted to him again with a crooked smile. He nodded to the Prince. ‘I accept.’

‘Good. Welcome home, Dandolo of Noctis.’


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks beginning of Part 2. It is connected with another story, _[Lost Letters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15835632)_.

 

Dandolo didn’t like Ophir. He didn’t like Abundance in general, and not that he liked Aurora either, but there was something especially… oppressive about the capital of Abundance.

It was not only all the different small things that required being constantly alert, not the strange calendar, although Dandolo supposed that if you lived all your life in a dome, you didn’t actually care about the change of seasons. The walls were oppressive, more so than in much smaller domes. Everything so… sterile, right angles, polished metal and cut stone. So cold.

Dandolo needed the curves and edges of rock, the whisper of sand, the glimmer of stars. In Ophir, in the upper levels, he felt both exposed and crowded in. Even the unruly, shabby Slums were more tolerable if lawless. Everyone there trying to survive. Starving, despite the name of their Corporation, despite the Corporation’s wealth. He couldn’t comprehend that. If people came to you and asked for shelter, you gave them shelter; if they were starving, you gave them food. Dandolo knew that Noctis wasn’t perfect—he knew it all too well. But every time he came to Ophir, he was faced with things that were _obscene_. And yet, everyone took them as a norm—and that was probably the most obscene thing of all.

He wanted to get out of Ophir as quickly as possible. He would have preferred to not get into Ophir at all, but he had contracts. Faradeas’s contracts.

He had been working through Faradeas’s mess the whole summer, exchanging correspondence, buying, selling, closing Faradeas’s debt. Word of Faradeas’s end had gotten out of Noctis fast—as fast as regular communication could be established again after the storms.

So he worked. He had moved to a different part of Noctis, though one from which he still could see the blue lanterns of the Palace. He had hired Tandje and Frances, and secured an agreement with Sofi for the next summer. He had exchanged half of his sandsail fleet for a caravan of ostriches: Frances was a better rider than a pilot. His chief pilot was Tan. He used his own reputation and connections he had built over the seasons of being indebted.

Faradeas’s failures, written in logs and datapads and books, had made his shadow smaller—even though there were nights when Dandolo woke up with the phantom burning on his sides.

Now, he had to deal with Ophir. Establishing longtime contacts with Ophir was a good idea, and some of them Dandolo had inherited from Faradeas—the contact with the Technomancers among them. Faradeas hunted rare books for them, even though Great Master Brandon was too cautious to make big requests. Dandolo could understand that—but it was exhausting, too. During their last meeting he had had to keep himself in check to not outright tell the sallow Great Master that he could smuggle in _anything_ , the ASC be damned. It would have been even interesting.

Technomancers were so pale. So tightly laced in their dark grey, with hushed voices. He felt the most out of place among them. Though one of the Technomancers escorting Brandon winked at Dandolo at the end of the meeting.

Maybe not all of them were so dusty like their Great Master.

He wanted to go to Shadowlair. From the few trips to the Source there he had made, seasons ago, he remembered the Aurorans differently.

The meeting with the Technomancers had left a stale taste in his mouth, despite that wink, but in a couple of hours he had received a message—he thought it was from that Technomancer—with an invitation to the Slums and instructions how to get to some eatery. It was signed with a simple ‘I.’.

He left his caravan wearing inconspicuous Ophirian clothing, slipping to the Slums.

They weren’t supposed to go to the Slums: he bristled at the fact that they had to dock at the Underworks, holding their own against potential locusts and moles, and then ship everything up to the Exchange. Not a step away from the main marketplace and warehouses. He had half a mind to sneak in a spy from Aurora, just out of spite. He was rather miffed by the exorbitant bribes he had had to pay to the ASC taxation officers. On _top_ of taxes.

He had only started his tattoos—he had the high honour of Master Witness Equanimity herself doing them—so the only marking was the pattern on his chin, and in the uneven light of the Slums it would appear as a beard. He ran his hand through his growing hair, checked the harness with a knife, flexed his leg to check the other knife in his boot. It would be enough.

The Slums reminded him of home—unruly, loud, bright—though they were very different, too. But if he closed his eyes, he could forget about the shutters of the enormous dome over his head. Could imagine a different scent in the air, different words and accents. Oranges and almonds, the sand seeping into his sandals.

He missed home—but they weren’t bound to return until the middle or, if things went particularly bad, the end of winter.

A whole season, or even two, away from home.

It wasn’t the first time for Dandolo: there had been a time when he hadn’t been home for the whole year—and he doubted it would be the last time, but he had found himself craving Noctis more than usual lately. Thinking about the Red Gates and what lay beyond them.

Perhaps it was to the best that he would spend so much time away from Noctis.

He found the eatery relatively quickly, the instructions precise and clear. It was a tiny place squeezed between a dusty shop of unknown wares, now closed, and a warehouse. Or perhaps it was regular lodgings? Dandolo couldn’t say. The eatery was nothing more than a tiny kitchen, a counter and a few high seats under an awning. An a cook, who was eyeing Dandolo with suspicion, wielding big culinary tongs. ‘New here?’ they murmured.

Dandolo took a seat cautiously, not letting his gaze wander away from the tongs. The air under the awning was hot and sweet, but he was not entirely sure what kind of food was being prepared.

‘He’s with me!’ said a rather breathless voice, and someone in a hooded jacket, flopping down on the seat. ‘Hello, Sasha!’

Sasha, the cook, smiled. ‘Hello, Ian. Running all the way from above?’

‘Yeah. Busy day.’

Dandolo recognised with surprise that the hooded figure was the Technomancer who had winked at him. The hood seemed to be in place to cover the wires on his forehead. Ian looked at Dandolo, and smirked. He had light eyes and sharp, noble features, capable of maintaining just as noble expression—but now alive with mischief.

Dandolo smiled in turn. ‘Do you want to discuss anything?’

Ian shrugged. Dandolo surmised he was older, but one could never exactly tell with Technomancers. ‘Just wanted to show hospitality by bringing you here. Sasha, the usual for me, please. And for you, Dandolo…’

He laughed. ‘I don’t even know what—’ He caught a glare from the cook, and coughed. He didn’t want to meet those tongs.

‘The best pyshki in Ophir!’ they said in the voice that promised pain to anyone who doubted it.

Dandolo raked his memory for what pyshki are, but then shrugged and asked, ‘All right. Pyshki.’

They turned out to be ring-shaped pieces of friend dough, dusted with sugar, and they were so sweet his teeth ached, but they tasted _amazing_. He supposed that his noises of appreciation eased Sasha’s suspicion a little. The tea that accompanied it was hot and strong and perfectly good.

‘Now that you are sufficiently dined,’ Ian noted, holding a cup in his hand, ‘I would like to ask you for a favour.’

So, it _was_ about business. But he rather liked Ian’s approach. He wondered whether Ian had researched the travelling merchants customs or simply was naturally inclined for diplomacy. He supposed it was both. ‘And what is it?’

‘I need a…’ Ian traced a line over the cup. He was wearing fingerless gloves, and his skin was very pale. ‘A line of communication. With our kindred, and not only from Shadowlair.’

Dandolo tilted his head. Ian was asking him to be a broker, a messenger. Interesting. ‘Is it your personal request or is it coming from… above?’

Ian shook his head, then scowled as the hood restricted his movements. ‘Brandon wouldn’t do any of that. He is too cautious. But we are isolated enough as it is, and it’s not how it _should_ be.’ There was passion, emotion flickering in Ian’s voice. It was… attractive.

‘You could use any merchants,’ Dandolo told him. ‘Why me?’

Ian looked at him, a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth. ‘Would you believe me if I said that it’s because you looked ready to stab Brandon out of boredom?’

He laughed and had to support himself on the counter to not slide down his seat. A full smile bloomed on Ian’s face, too.

‘I can believe that,’ he told Ian when he could catch his breath, and finished his tea. He was warm and his mouth tasted sweet, and it made this visit to Ophir better.

‘I’m a good judge of character, usually,’ Ian added. His smile was a little wavery, as though he wasn’t used to it, but it made light flicker in his eyes. ‘I need someone outside Ophir I could trust.’

‘I’m a merchant,’ Dandolo pointed out. ‘Isn’t it held in Abundance that travelling merchants are… unreliable as wind? Though I assure you, this misconception is something only dome-dwellers can come up with.’

Ian quirked his eyebrow. It made him look rogueish. ‘So does that mean I can rely on you?’

Dandolo pondered on it—but from the start he had known he would agree. They were chained here, these pale Technomancers, and if he could let them have just this slice of freedom… He nodded. ‘My word. I even know someone… not of Shadowlair who could be of some help to you. He is a man of influence and great knowledge—and a kin to you. I’ll send you a message with the list of merchants you can trust to deliver your correspondence to me and, through me, anywhere you want.’

The Technomancer’s eyes glistened in the low light, and he lowered them, blinking rapidly. ‘You don’t even know how much…’ He shook his head, once, and drank his tea.

Dandolo smiled again. ‘I have an idea, trust me.’

Ian kept quiet for a moment—then startled and glanced at the clock over the counter. ‘I must go. I…’ He got up and took Dandolo’s hands, squeezing them, and where his fingers came into contact, a tiny spark teased Dandolo’s hand. ‘This means so much. I won’t forget it. And maybe one day I will need a greater favour.’

Dandolo nodded, locking hands with him. ‘You can rely on me.’

Ian was still then released his hands and walked away, disappearing in the labyrinth of the Slums.

Dandolo asked Sasha for more tea, thinking.

If he had been Faradeas’s property still, he would have never made such an interesting contact. A little thing to shake Abundance. He hoped Artair wouldn’t deny him a request to establish a connection with the Abundancean Technomancer.

Loud voices had drawn Dandolo attention outward. He put his hand on his knife before he opened his eyes.

Something crashed, close, but the winding alleys hid it from view. It was followed by a barrage of swearing. Then more shouts. A few shots.

A sizzle of electricity.

Dandolo bolted upright. Coul it be that Ian had come into trouble? He gripped his knife tighter and slid it out of the sheath.

A small figure in a half-torn jacket barrelled through to the eatery. Looking back, they tripped over a rock and would have gone face-first into the ground, if Dandolo hadn’t caught them.

They had red hair that was flaking strangely and— It was blood. By the Shadow.

Dandolo rightened them. ‘Are you all right?’ He nearly slapped himself. What a stupid question.

They looked up at him, reminding him of Fran. Eyes huge and bright—pools of fear. They had strange eyes, like the dust of storms, the sand on the planes.

They threw a glance over their shoulder.

Another crash sounded, then Dandolo picked words, ‘Where’d he gone? Little shit…’

The hands in Dandolo’s shirt tightened. ‘Please…’ The guy swallowed. There was a gash on his forehead, blood seeping down his brow.

If people asked for your help, you gave it to them.

Dandolo left a sizable chip at the eatery, nodding to the cook, silently asking them to not give them away. They shrugged and turned their back, turning pyshki with their tongs. As though they hadn’t seen anything.

Dandolo put a hand on the guy’s back, keeping him steady. ‘Come on. Need to find a quiet place.’

He’d brought him up to the warehouse in the Exchange that he had reserved for them for the season. The warehouse was empty save for a few empty crates, waiting for wares. Dandolo ushered—or rather, half-dragged—the guy inside, then pressed on his shoulders, making him sit down on the nearest crate.

He was swaying slightly, and Dandolo steadied him then unclasped the flask from his belt and thrust it into his hands. ‘Drink. All of it. I’ll be right back.’ He went around the crates to the small office in the depths and took out a medkit from under the desk, returned to his rescuee, pulled another crate out and sat down. He wet a cloth first. ‘Do you want to sleep?’ he asked while he wiped blood off the guy’s brow.

‘No… What kind of fucking question is that?’

Dandolo winced. ‘Language.’ He dabbed at the blood. The gash was superficial. The guy’s red hair was shabby, as though… It looked like someone had cut his hair in a haste, leaving cuts on the skin in the process.

‘Is that… Is that a tattoo?’ his ward murmured.

‘It is.’

‘Are you… You are not from here.’ His words were slurry, and Dandolo didn’t like it. Though maybe he had simply bitten his tongue during his run.

Dandolo tilted the guy’s head up. He was older than Fran, but only barely, ashen like most of the citizens of Ophir, but thinner than merchants Dandolo usually dealt with in Exchange. A Slums kid, most likely. Dandolo wiped blood off his cheek. ‘No, I’m not from Ophir.’

‘Only saw tattoos on the, the travelling merchants.’ His eyes were sharp, not glassy. Perhaps he was not as dazed as he tried to appear.

Dandolo smiled. ‘I am, in fact, a travelling merchant.’

‘Are you allowed to be in the Slums?’

Dandolo huffed. ‘You ask too many questions, now it’s my turn. Who were those people? Why were they looking for you?’

The guy—the _boy_ —looked away. His hair was a shade lighter than Dandolo’s. He was gripping the edge of the crate. He had red sand under his uneven, bitten nails.

Dandolo put bandage on his forehead, packed the medkit, lowered it down on the floor. ‘You don’t have to reply,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t even care. You can go out right now, and I—’

The boy murmured something that Dandolo didn’t recognise at first. Then looked at Dandolo from under his brow. ‘The ASC. Охранка. They were after me.’

Dandolo leaned back, keeping his hands on his lap. He didn’t want the boy to feel threatened. ‘You didn’t have to tell me that. In fact, you telling me that might bring trouble on my head. If you are a criminal—’

‘I’m _not_.’ He said it so quietly, through gritted teeth. Fists against the dusty canvas of his pants. There were small, thread-like scars on his hands, veins a blue labyrinth under near transparent skin. Then those strange sand-coloured eyes turned onto Dandolo. ‘I want out of the city.’

Dandolo tried to imagine him in the plaines. A dome-dweller, a city kid, never truly experiencing the heat of the day, the rage of the dust devils, the absolute darkness of the night giving way to the scattering of stars, like salt spilt onto the blanket of primordial darkness.

Dandolo had considered, half-heartedly, smuggling someone _into_ Ophir, just to stir things up a bit.

But turned out, he might need to smuggle someone _out_.

He smiled. ‘I can do this. But tell me your name.’

The boy sagged visibly, so much that Dandolo had to catch him so he wouldn’t topple over onto the floor. ‘Anton. My name is Anton.’

***

 To get out of Ophir, merchants had not only to declare their wares, but, first and foremost, make sure the numbers they had come in matched the numbers they had been getting out. If those numbers didn’t match, they would have to provide a good explanation—which wouldn’t suit Anton.

So, while the boy rested in the warehouse, Dandolo went to the docks to his caravan and told Tan his plan. Tan’s face barely changed throughout Dandolo’s explanation—but a small smirk quirked eir lips. Ey were just as tired from Ophir as Dandolo was.

Dandolo picked spare clothes from the sandsails: one of Tan’s shirts and his own pants. Anton was rather broad in shoulders, but short. He also picked the necessary gear: goggles, a headscarf, a mask. Then Dandolo returned to the warehouse. He almost expected to find it empty, but the kid was asleep, curled up on crates in a pose that made Dandolo’s back ache in sympathy. How he fit there Dandolo didn’t even know. Even in his sleep, the boy was frowning, his hands clutched in tight fists.

‘Anton.’

He jerked up and jumped to his feet, backing into a corner. Dandolo held up a hand, not moving towards him. ‘It’s me. I’ve brought you clothes. You need to change.’

Anton’s nostrils were flaring, but then his breathing started slowing down, and his posture relaxed. He looked at the clothes in Dandolo’s arms, then up at him. ‘You… You haven’t sold me out?’

Had he so little trust? But then, Dandolo didn’t know anything about him. And someone had to make the first step towards building that trust. ‘I haven’t. I won’t, you have my word.’

‘You are already leaving?’

He nodded. ‘Our business here is done, and we are expected elsewhere.’

‘How are you going to get me out?’

Dandolo’s mouth twitched. ‘Put these clothes on. I’ll explain on our way to the Underworks.’

The boy accepted the clothes, but shifted on his feet. Dandolo quirked an eyebrow, then realised that Anton might be unwilling to undress in front of him, and went to the office part of the warehouse, making a show of rifling through papers and datapads. He didn’t read the documents, though, but the plan of the Underworks unfolded in his mind as he traced mentally the route they would take.

‘What do I do with _this_?’

Dandolo stood on his tiptoes to look over the crates. Anton was wearing the clothes and holding up the headscarf, goggles and the mask. The shirt fit him, but he had to roll up the legs of the pants, and his boots—thick, unlike the sandals Dandolo wore—did not match the outfit. The bruises on his arms and his ashen skin didn’t fit either.

If Dandolo had tried to smuggle him by posing him as one of his people, he would have failed right away in the eyes of anyone who could think. He wasn’t keen on bribing his way _out_ of Ophir.

No, his plan was different—and Anton needed a change simply for the fact that he was going out with them.

He showed Anton how to put everything on, then they left the warehouse. He walked Anton through the Slums quickly, to one of the less-used entrances to the Underworks.

‘You aren’t going to kill me, are you?’ Anton grumbled, as they were making their way through the tunnels. Anton’s steps were so heavy, and Dandolo decided to teach him a different way to walk. The sand-walk.

‘No. I gave you my word that I would get you out. No harm will come to you, not while you are with me.’ His inner feeling and memorised map was leading him forward, and he hoped that no microquakes had happened recently to alter the route.

‘Are you sure we are—’ Anton stumbled, and Dandolo held an arm to catch him, looking around st the rocks overhead.

They were covered with parallel gouges, most of them old. But not all. Some were recent. He should have explored this route beforehand—but there was no time.

He put a hand on his knife: it wouldn’t help, but he knew which injuries would slow down.

‘Dando—’

He yanked Anton close and put a hand over his mouth. The sand eyes widened, and he dropped his hand immediately and said quickly, ‘Don’t move your feet. Unclasp the flask from my belt.’

‘Wha—’

‘Do as I say, please.’ He was careful to angle his torso away from Anton, enough to let him fiddle with the maglock on his flask, but not moving his feet. He could feel the vibrations already through the thin soles of his sandals. The syncopated rhythm of four limbs hitting the rock right underneath them... No, eight limbs.

‘Uncap the flask,’ he said, ‘and toss it as far as you can.’

Anton’s eyes widened. ‘Are you fucking crazy? It’s _water_!’

The vibrations were unignorable now, why couldn’t Anton feel it? ‘Do as I—’

They were too late.

The sand shifted under his feet, and Dandolo shifted with it, letting go of Anton. Two moles screeched, jumping out, and fell onto the sand with a muffled thud. They were dark, but skin sagged from their gaunt frames.

They were thirsty.

Dandolo unsheathed his knife and half-turned to the kid. ‘Anton, run the—’

But the kid sidestepped, pulling out a nailgun—where had he gotten it?—his eyes burning, a grin on his face. ‘No. Fucking. Way.’ And he charged before Dandolo could stop him.

***

They had made their way through the Underworks, in the end.

‘So this is him?’

Dandolo opened one eye to glare at Tan. Tan didn’t look affected by his glare.

Dandolo tipped his head back on the hull of his gondola. His whole body was aching, and the gash on his side was going to turn the next few days in the pilot seat into torment.

Anton had bled onto the seat a lot.

After a hasty retreat from Ophir they made it to the off-route caves to treat Anton’s and Dandolo’s wounds. Now the kid was curled up in the hammock fixed between the gondola and one of the amas of Dandolo’s ’sail, a blanket over him.

Dandolo drank from a flask.

Tan sat on the boulder near him, a flask of eir own in hand. ‘Why, Dandolo?’

He shook his head and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to speak about the big wet eyes, so full of fear and pain and plea, how they reminded Dandolo of Fran—and all that distrust in the stubbornly curled fists, the line of his mouth. The way the kid had whipped out a gun and launched himself at two thirsty feral moles, with a feral roar of his own.

‘Is he running from authorities?’ Tan asked.

Dandolo sighed without opening his eyes. He was aching, but he was out of the confines of a dome again. The plains of Mars around him—his place. His home, his city far away, but always waiting for him. ‘I don’t care, Tan. He needed help. And I gave it. I gave him my word.’

Tan nudged his knee. ‘You sure? Is he worth your word?’

Dandolo opened his eyes then, looked out of the mouth of the cave they had camped in. The shadows of the Three Peaks blotting out the spilt salt of the stars.

‘Yes, Tan. He is worth my word.’

They sat together for a while in comfortable silence, then Tan went to eir ’sail for the night, while Dandolo lingered long after his flask was emptied. Then he got up, rolling his shoulders, and circled the gondola.

The kid was such a small shape under the blanket. Dandolo figured that, as a dome dweller, he was unused to the dramatic changes in temperature out in the plains, so Dandolo undid the knot on his hip and covered Anton with his blanket-scarf.

‘Why _did_ you help me?’ sounded from under the pile.

Dandolo then perched on the ama. It was such a quiet night that he didn’t want to sleep. ‘Because you needed help.’

Silence. He hoped the kid went back to sleep, but then his voice sounded again, ‘Word doesn’t mean shit.’

Dandolo winced. ‘Maybe in your world it doesn’t. In mine, it’s everything. And don’t swear, please.’

‘Should have left me there.’

Dandolo squinted at the lump under the blankets. A lamp on the hook on the mainsail was suffusing the gondola in blue light, everything around them in deep darkness.

‘I didn’t. I wouldn’t.’ He could recognise the manic need to throw oneself into danger, the pull of darkness, crimson and suffocating. He had known its taste, and wore its mark on his shoulder. ‘I gave you my word.’

‘So you keep repeating.’ A rustle. Then the pale face showed over the edge of the blankets. ‘Dandolo?’

He smiled a little. ‘Yes?’

Anton’s gaze flicked over the walls, even though Dandolo doubted he could see much. Domes rarely got dark completely. At last his eyes stopped on Dandolo again. ‘Could you help me with…’ He ran his hand through the cropped hair.

Dandolo smiled wider. ‘Of course. But I need to use mole fat for that.’

Anton made such a grimace that Dandolo had to bite his knuckles to not laugh out loud and wake everyone up. He moved to the gondola and rummaged under the pilot seat, feeling around for a small jar and a strop, and said over his shoulder, ‘It heals your wounds. Believe me, even a minor scratch might kill you when you are out in the plains.’

Anton grumbled something under his nose, but shuffled awkwardly to the edge of the hammock while Dandolo stropped his blade. ‘You should sit down on the ground or on a rock. The hammock might topple over and I don’t want to slice you.’

Anton was silent, and Dandolo looked at him.

Anton was peering at him.

Dandolo’s chest tightened, and he said softly, ‘It’s not a threat. Just a precaution.’

Anton moved onto the end of the ama, hands locked on his lap. Dandolo, his knife held carefully away from his body, opened the jar. He liked it, the stylised _Ocio_ carved onto the lid. A heavy scent wafted off the sandy-white substance within.

Anton’s eyes widened. ‘What… is this?’

Dandolo smiled, rather pleased by the reaction. ‘Perfumed fat.’

‘It’s so _sweet_.’

‘Orange and camellia.’

Anton rolled his shoulders. ‘I have no idea what the fuck that means.’

Dandolo stood behind him, scooping some of the fat from the jar. ‘Don’t swear. I’ll get you candied oranges. You’ll like them.’ He spread the grease over Anton’s head, massing it lightly. The kid’s shoulders dropped, and Dandolo smiled to himself.

He worked carefully, mindful of the cuts and scratches already present on Anton’s head, wiping the fragrant grease and hairs on a rag.

‘You were planning to run, with the moles, weren’t you?’ Anton said after a while.

Dandolo tipped his head to the left shoulder, working on the temples. ‘Mhm.’

‘Why?’

He sighed. ‘We were not equipped to fight those moles. Even with your gun. And we didn’t _need_ to.’

Anton twitched, and Dandolo only barely managed to get the blade away from him. ‘Are you telling me I’m incapable of fighting?’

Dandolo wiped the blade. He wouldn’t mind dulling it on those who had tried to hunt Anton down. ‘That is not I am saying. You fight like a mole.’

‘The fuck does that mean?’

He didn’t remind Anton to not swear again. Only took his chin and tilted his head to the right shoulder, working on the other temple. ‘You’ve no skill, just blind rage, not thinking about yourself.’

‘Isn’t that the whole point?’

‘The point is to survive. Have you ever seen how an ostrich fights?’ He tipped Anton’s head forward, shaving the nape of his neck. His head was of a handsome shape, and his hair was beautiful, too, but he wanted it shaven, and Dandolo wasn’t the one to protest that.

‘I’m not an ostrich-rider,’ Anton grumbled. ‘Unlike _some_. So how do they fight?’

Dandolo snorted at the not-very-subtle jab. ‘They don’t. They run away.’ He was stretching it a little: ostriches _could_ fight, and fiercely. But in most instances, they would run. The plains were theirs, and few beings could outrun them.

Anton huffed, but didn’t say anything.

When Dandolo finished, he wiped the blade the last time, then stropped it again. Anton ran a hand over his clean-shaven head, nicks and all, shining in the blue light, then brought his fingers to his nose and closed his eyes.

Dandolo hid a smile. He sheathed the blade, closed the jar. ‘You should go back to sleep. We rise before the sun, and we will be travelling until midday.’

Anton groaned. ‘I’m shorter than you and I have no idea how to fit in the, the…’ He gestured at the hull.

‘Gondola, Anton. It’s a gondola, or _waka_.’ He pointed at the outrigger. ‘This is an _ama_ , connected to the gondola by the _aka_. The whole vessel is called a sandsail, or _waka_ , too, though there are different terms depending on the configuration of the outriggers and sails.’ He laughed at another grimace on Anton’s face. ‘Too much?’

‘I’ll never remember all that. Блядство.’

Dandolo smirked. ‘Language.’

The look of surprise on Anton’s face was just as good as the grimace: mouth half-open, thin eyebrows arched. ‘You understand it?’

‘Я знаю несколько языков, and several dialects. Requirements of my trade. So if you thought you’d get away with swearing, you should drop that thought right away, парень.’

Anton huffed. ‘Show-off.’

Dandolo spread his arms wide, and then bowed, keeping his gaze on Anton. ‘Happy to please you, kind sir.’

Anton’s mouth twitched, and Dandolo hoped for a smile—but then the kid’s expression turned wary. ‘What do I owe you for all this?’

Well. Even the Shadow Paths weren’t made in a blink. ‘Nothing. You may go, you just tell me where you want to be, and we’ll drop you there.’ Anton frowned. Dandolo wondered whether he had ever seen a map of Mars. ‘Or,’ he continued, ‘you can work with me.’

‘Under you?’

‘ _With_ me. As one of my partners.’

Anton raised his brows. Dandolo rolled his eyes. Anton tapped his chin. ‘Do I need to get that?’

‘No. You’d have to work for it.’ Get vouched for, prove himself—get to Noctis. Dandolo wasn’t about to endanger his city, even though he didn’t think the kid was a murderer or a spy. He needed to get to know him. ‘But it’s not a requirement to be my partner. I’ll teach you to pilot a sandsail and,’ he grinned, ‘ride an ostrich.’

Anton made a face. Dandolo was starting to like the emotiveness of his face—an indication, perhaps, that he was relaxing into his new surroundings. ‘No, thanks. No ostriches.’

Oh, he couldn’t wait to get together with Fran’s riders and get the two to meet.

Dandolo turned his grin into a smile. ‘So? Will you be my partner, Anton?’

Anton made a strange thing with his hands, moving them down and brushing his thighs, then frowned and looked down. Ah. He had tried to stuff his hands in his pockets, but the pants they had given him had no pockets. They were pilot gear, and pockets were not very useful in the gondola.

Anton looked at him. The blue lantern gave his eyes a strange shade—a shade that reminded Dandolo of something and made his left shoulder tingle. ‘Yes.’

‘Your word?’

‘My word. Yes, I’ll be your partner.’


	5. Chapter 5

Dandolo had never thought that his life was so different in all the small things. That there were so many of them. Details that he didn’t even think twice about, he had to explain to Anton. How to make place behind the pilot seat, how to put on and activate the voicelink. How to fix goggles so that sand couldn’t trickle under them. Anton bristled at being told, and imitated well and silently. Dandolo figured it out and stopped instructing him unless it was absolutely necessary, instead showing. Just going about the usual pre-flight preparations.

Then the east blazed blue.

Anton dropped the mask.

The strange eyes widened, and the frown between his brows smoothed out, the hard lines disappearing, shoulders dropped. His eyes glistened, the light pooling in them as the blue heralded the sunrise.

Dandolo stepped to Anton, picked the mask, dusted it off, and squeezed Anton’s shoulder. ‘Shouldn’t look directly at the sun.’

Anton looked away hastily with a sharply-drawn breath. ‘Yeah. Yeah.’

They set out on the road before the sun rose completely. Tan’s sym-sail was leading, and Dandolo was keeping on his own a little to the right of the main wedge. Tan’s voice, reading wind and course numbers, was droning through the voicelink—a soothing sound that Dandolo mostly ignored.

‘Is it always so quiet and solitary?’ sounded Anton’s voice over the link. The kid had enough sense to do it over the private channel.

Dandolo smiled, correcting his course with a slight press of a pedal. ‘Pretty much.’

‘Even in a caravan?’

‘While crossing flat terrain, yes. But after a few hours the chatter starts, because otherwise you fall into a trance and might not notice the change in the wind.’

A pause. ‘You are not checking the, uh, the tools.’

Observant. ‘I don’t need to. Not as often as others do.’

‘Cocky?’

Dandolo chuckled. ‘No. I simply don’t need to look at them to know the wind or where I’m going.’

‘Ah. _Special_.’ There was no malice, though, in Anton’s tone.

It eased something in Dandolo’s chest. It didn’t matter that Anton didn’t know _what_ he was exactly. To be acknowledged not as an asset or someone to revere and envy, but to be jabbed about it… It was different. It felt good. He adjusted the mainsail again, the vessel gliding light and fast, Mars a glorious blur of red and pink and orange. ‘Anton?’

‘What?’

‘How old are you?’

A tiny hesitation. ‘Nineteen. Why?’

He nearly yanked the brakes. Anton looked young, but not that— Oh. Abundance. Dandolo calculated. About thirty seasons. Dandolo was right about his initial age assessment. ‘No. Nothing. It’s all right, Anton. We’ll make a stop at a farm and wait out the worst of the heat, then continue.’

A grunt. Then Anton fell silent.

Dandolo liked gliding in silence, only the chatter and wind washing over him—but now he had a _companionable_ silence. Despite the initial delay at the start of their travel, they arrived to Juva just on schedule. The small group of five greenhouse-domes surrounded by even smaller dwelling domes was a pleasant place. It was removed enough from Ophir to not experience the suffocating influence of the capital, but it wasn’t far enough to be called the edge of the world.

Though for Dandolo, there no place was the edge of the world.

A message had been sent beforehand with the estimated time of their arrival, and the docking area was already waiting for them. The fleet stopped there. Dandolo hopped out of the gondola, then thought of helping Anton—but he didn’t think Anton would appreciate it.

Anton’s groans and grumbles were pretty entertaining.

‘Dandolo! No Faradeas with you?’

He turned around only when he was sure he could keep his face neutral. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I was sure I had sent out a message… The Sun has claimed him.’

Siva, the farm’s head, nodded. Then smacked him on the shoulder. ‘Just checking. It’s good. He was shit.’

He could _feel_ Anton’s attention. But he hoped his not asking about Anton’s past would tell the boy that he didn’t want to be asked either.

Siva glanced over his shoulder with raised eyebrows, probably at Anton being… not very graceful, then looked again at Dandolo. ‘You are just in time for the second harvest, kids. Rest. The usual quarters are all yours, and there’s plenty of water.’

Dandolo clapped his hands, gaining attention. ‘All right, everyone knows where everything is. Shower, three hours for a nap, then everything else.’

An assortment of cheers rose in the docking area, accompanied by Siva’s hearty laugh.

‘Not business first?’ Anton murmured by his shoulder. Anton had dusty rings around his eyes—his goggles would need to be adjusted.

Dandolo tilted his head. ‘We are dirty, tired and hungry. It’s impolite to demand doing business from a partner in such a state.’

Anton huffed. His eyelids were drooping. He was, of course, unused to heat and spending hours in the wind-lulling plains. ‘I say, that is _exactly_  the time to do business.’

Dandolo frowned. Anton couldn’t be serious. ‘When you plan to be dishonest—of course. But it’s not our way. Come, I’ll show you our quarters.’ Dandolo wasn’t keen on staying in this network of domes, even domes smaller than Ophir—but camping outside in the full blaze was irrational, when inside it was cool and dark; besides, it was impolite: they were being offered a stay, a share of food and water.

‘It’s a nice farm,’ Anton said while they were walking the corridor. A wall, the one facing the interior of the dome, had a row of windows and greenhouses proper could be observed.

Dandolo tried not to stare at the look of barely concealed wonder on Anton’s face. ‘It is. It’s one of the farms feeding Ophir. In-dome farms are well and good, but it’s not like the fresh produce grown out in the plains. Most of it goes to Ophir, but some goes to other towns.’

Anton fell quiet then stopped completely, looking at a greenhouse. It was illuminated from within, plants throwing branching shadows onto the walls, like canyons of the face of Mars. Anton’s profile was suddenly expressionless. ‘Export?’

Dandolo stopped with him and went to his side. ‘Yes. We will carry some to our next destination, processed, but usually they send it with trains, since food is not my speciality and trains are better equipped for keeping things fresh.’

Anton looked at him, and Dandolo couldn’t read his face. ‘Ration cards,’ Anton said in a flat tone. ‘We… The people in the Slums use ration card system. They say the food crisis will be over soon, but I…’ He shook his head, the line of his mouth breaking into a grimace. He rubbed his elbows. ‘I don’t remember a single year without that system.’

‘What do you mean, a crisis? I don’t deal in food, but I’ve seen the papers, reports from farms… Even without Green Hope the Ophir and Lunae regions are producing enough to export to Aurora and the Alliance.’

Anton shrugged. His face again turned neutral, and it was very pale. ‘Papers. Reports. Блядство, ничего это не стоит.’

Dandolo’s chest tightened. ‘It _is_ worth something, Anton! I have seen the farms, and know others who travel between them regularly!’

Anton shrugged again. ‘Just telling you what I know. Show me the room or whatever it is, my clothes are full of sand.’ He brushed past Dandolo.

Dandolo’s left shoulder tingled, and he called, ‘Anton. You will never go hungry with me. Слышишь? Never.’

Anton slowed down—then resumed his walking.

Dandolo sighed then hastened after him, taking the lead again.

The small room was bigger than a gondola, even a heavy-duty one—but Dandolo felt confined nonetheless. Still, it was a welcome respite: it was clean, sealed away from sand, the lights could be dimmed, and there was a shower and two beds.

The sight of three lidded bowls on the table between the beds, and a jug with cups near it, warmed Dandolo’s heart somewhat. ‘If Siva…’ He lifted the lid off the smallest bowl. It was white, and filled with golden crescents, with small crystals glimmering on them. Dandolo tugged a glove off his hand, picked one crescent slice, then turned to Anton. The line of Anton’s body was all tension, and he eyed the slice like it was going to bite him.

Dandolo grinned. ‘Candied oranges. I promised you, didn’t I? Try it. They don’t make them hard here, and they are not spiced like I like it, but they are very good nonetheless.’ He wanted to wipe that haunted, pale look off Anton’s face. Wanted to see his face smooth out again in wonder at the marvels of the world.

He expected that Anton would refuse, or take the slice from his hands. Instead, Anton leaned forward and closed his lips over it. Dandolo couldn’t help but smile wider. Anton chewed thoughtfully. ‘That’s…’ His eyes glistened, and he blinked rapidly. ‘It’s. Good.’

Dandolo closed the bowl. Shower first. ‘I’ll ask Siva to pack more for you.’

‘Dandolo. You don’t have to…’ Anton shifted. A dust of sand fell from the folds of his tunic.

Dandolo softened his tone. ‘I want to. Go wash yourself. The shower is at the end of the corridor.’

Anton’s face twisted. ‘Sand again?’

He didn’t understand for a moment. Then quirked his brows. ‘No. It’s a _water_ shower. Go. And leave me some hot water!’

Anton played with the edge of a glove. ‘No. You go first.’

Dandolo tilted his head. Then nodded. ‘As you wish. Dig in, then. The food won’t spoil, but it is an offering, and it would be rude to not accept it.’

The shower was a blessing after a road. Belatedly he thought they should have shared with Anton: would have been faster, saved water… But then he thought of the tension in Anton, his apparent aversion to touch. How would he react to nudity? To sharing personal space?

Dandolo wondered whether they could understand each other at all, and find ways to fit together.

He washed the sand and sweat off quickly, scrubbing himself clean with a pumice. Stepped out of the shower, content to be free of clothing—and then pulled his pants on with regret. But until he measured Anton’s reaction, he didn’t want to threaten or scandalise him. He ran a hand through his hair. It was getting long enough that soon he would braid it.

Returning back to the room, Dandolo poured some tea into their cups, nicked a few orange slices. Noticed Anton’s glance, but then Anton quickly looked away and hastened out of the room. Dandolo sighed. He dimmed the lighting in the room and fell on one of the beds. It was awfully quiet here, and he could feel the walls.

He didn’t open his eyes when Anton returned into the room, carrying the scent of water with him. He moved about, and Dandolo tracked his movements. Anton stopped between the beds, rustled.

Dandolo winced when a cold water drop landed on his cheek—and went rigid when cool lips touched his.

He opened his eyes.

Anton looked away. He had awfully many scars, pink and white on his ashen skin. His chest flushed.

‘I don’t need this,’ Dandolo told him quietly.

‘I don’t have anything else to pay with.’

Dandolo sighed again. ‘I’m not a pimp and don’t take the unwilling into my bed.’

‘I’m willing.’ Anton shifted. His gaze wouldn’t stop on anything.

Dandolo closed his eyes, trying to control his anger—at himself and at Ophir. ‘I doubt it. And if you come with this shit again, I won’t hesitate before punching you, I promise.’ He pulled Anton down by his hand, but lightly enough to give him a chance to protest. Anton didn’t. He went down onto Dandolo’s chest, tense at first, but then gradually sank into the embrace. His skin was cool from shower, his breaths tickling Dandolo’s neck. He shifted, stretched an arm over Dandolo’s chest tentatively. Rubbed a thumb over the mark on Dandolo’s shoulder. It felt… weird, but not in a wrong way.

Dandolo smiled. Anton’s head still smelled of oranges and camellia.

‘Strange,’ Anton murmured.

Dandolo ran a hand down Anton’s back, lowered his eyelids again. ‘You should try to sleep.’

‘This is strange, too. Who sleeps during the day?’

‘Caravaners. We live by a different routine than stationary people. You should get used to it. But what else is strange?’

‘That you… refused.’

Anton’s shoulders were warmer than the rest of him. Would need grease to protect him from heat. Anton shifted, restless, then his leg came over Dandolo’s. The bed was not exactly big. ‘You think that, because I’m a merchant, everything is a commodity and can be bought and sold?’

Anton was silent, but his previous words, his attitude were speaking for him.

Dandolo sighed yet again. ‘If you so wish to perform an exchange and pay back—help someone else. One day someone might come to you and need you.’

Anton huffed, warming Dandolo’s throat. ‘Who would need me?’

‘Someone might. You needed _me_ , after all. Don’t turn them away.’

Anton grumbled something, reminding Dandolo again of moles, and shifted, shifted, settling after a while, tucked into Dandolo’s embrace, warming up, and Dandolo drifted away.

***

Dandolo woke up to the sickening feeling of being watched. It took him a moment of confusion to remember why he was folded over a small body.

His internal clock told him he hadn’t had three hours of sleep. Skin crawling, he unwrapped his limbs from around Anton, the Ophirian’s back like a furnace, and turned around.

Fran startled when their eyes met. Flush crept up their cheeks, darkening them even more than usual. Their tunic was the short ostrich-riding cut, open at the front, and the head scarf ends spilt on their chest. The rider horn was still on their belt.

They turned around and fled, leaving the door ajar.

Dandolo ran a hand over his face. What was all that about? Was his internal clock broken? The ostriches were supposed to arrive only in the evening, by the time the ’sails were to be loaded.

He glanced at Anton, but the Ophirian was asleep, an arm touching the floor. Dandolo got up, pulled a sheet from the other bed and threw it over Anton. Then he slid on his tunic, wrapped his blanket-scarf over his waist and left the room, closing the door silently.

He didn’t have to look for Fran for long: they were curled by one of the windows, hands clutched at their right thigh.

Dandolo hastened to them, crouched in front of them. ‘Let me?’

The head scarf was half obscuring their face, but he didn’t miss the wetness on Fran’s cheeks. He didn’t comment on it, but waited until Fran released their death grip on their thigh. He untied the hem of the right pant leg and rolled it carefully up over Fran’s knee. The skin around the edge of the prosthetic was angry red and hot to the touch.

‘You can’t ride in the heat like this,’ he said quietly, even though he knew that Fran knew it well.

‘I wanted to see you!’ Fran whispered. A tear landed on Dandolo’s cheek, and he looked up.

Fran was crying openly now, twisting the crimson fabric of the headscarf. ‘I’m sorry! I wanted…’

Dandolo reached up to their cheek. ‘Shh. It’s all right, you are all right. I’ll carry you into the shower, we’ll take it off. How’s the idea for you?’

They shut their eyes tightly, then nodded. ‘Yes, D.’

He put his arms under Fran’s knees, careful not to aggravate the prosthetic much, and under their back, then lifted them up. ‘It will be all right.’ He carried them into the shower and lowered onto a small counter then crouched again, running his fingers over the locks on the prosthetic. ‘Ready, Fran?’

They nodded—and blanched when Dandolo disconnected the leg then carefully removed it. Once, Fran had said that the moment of disconnect felt like going partially blind but in your brain. They had the diagnostic kit, but for now they could simply put it aside to let their muscles and nerves rest.

‘All right?’ Dandolo checked.

Fran bit their lip, then nodded once more and reached out their arms. Dandolo got up and let them lean on him to get into the shower. He lowered them on a small bench, and they took off their headscarf, releasing their heavy braid, then removed the rest of their clothes and touched the panel to turn the water on.

While they showered, Dandolo leaned on the counter, cleaning the servos in the legs, mindful to not touch the inner connectors. It was cooling slowly. Fran really shouldn’t have ridden in such heat.

‘Was that _him_?’

Dandolo lifted his head from the prosthetic. ‘Who?’

Fran turned the water off, and Dandolo put the leg down and helped them out.

‘That guy. With you.’ Their voice was tense, and their body was tense, too. ‘Is that the one you smuggled out of Ophir?’

‘How do you know?’

Fran looked at him like he had fallen out of a gondola and hit his head. ‘Tan sent a message.’

Dandolo breathed out. Of course. ‘Yes, Fran. That’s him.’

‘Why?’ They weren’t looking at him, fixing the leg back, dripping water everywhere.

‘He needed help.’ He felt like he was repeating himself.

‘If he got into trouble, that’s his problem.’

‘If everyone thought like this,’ Dandolo countered, ‘Noctis would have never been born. What’s wrong, Fran?’

‘He’s trouble.’

‘You haven’t even met him.’

‘I don’t even want to. Don’t want some dome-crawler to be with us. We drop him at Varna and—’

Dandolo crossed his arms on his chest. ‘He’s my partner.’

Fran reeled. ‘What? I’m not going to work with him!’

‘He’s _my_ partner. Not yours.’

Fran was silent, eyes blazing. To be under that blaze felt… terrible. ‘Burn in the sun, D,’ they spit out at last and stormed away.

He didn’t… He couldn’t understand. Was it jealousy? Did Fran feel threatened— _Why_ would they feel threatened? Dandolo wouldn’t put a dome-dweller, not right away, at the head of his caravans. Anton would never get as good at riding as Fran.

So what _was_ the problem?

Dandolo could understand feeling a threat to them all in general. Anton was a stranger, definitely with a legal trail after him. He didn’t know their ways—but Dandolo wasn’t about to bring him into Noctis tomorrow. It would take seasons of testing him to decide whether to trust him with his city.

_I wanted to see you._

Spirits of the plains, he didn’t need this now. Personal problems in a caravan could doom everyone.

He wandered into the kitchen and sat down, pulling close a bowl of candied oranges, not thinking about anything in particular.

Was it this hard for everyone?

Had it been this hard for Faradeas?

‘Problems?’

He startled at Siva’s voice, then shook himself. ‘A conflict. And Fran needs rest because they have driven in the heat, and I don’t even want to check the ostriches.’

‘They are fine, I have checked,’ she said, sitting down across the table of him.

He let out a sigh. It felt that it was everything he could do, and he hadn’t had his proper nap. ‘Sorry, Siva. It’s my problems, not yours.’

‘You’ve got this, boy. You always were better than Far in everything.’

He smiled sourly. ‘It’s not difficult to be better than him at some things.’

She smiled. ‘You’ll make the Doxe yet, _matelot_.’

He lowered his eyes, heat on his cheeks. She couldn’t be serious. ‘Maybe in a few seasons, _tantine_.’

‘No way he wouldn’t,’ Tan grumbled from the door. ‘If he keeps breaking the caravan regime. Why are you not asleep?’ Ey walked in and sat down by him.

Dandolo nudged em with his shoulder. ‘Why aren’t _you_?’

‘Fran kicked me out of the room and fell asleep on my bed. And must I remind you that usually they sleep with you?’

‘You mustn’t.’ He pulled another slice of orange, but had no stomach for any food, even a treat.

‘They are upset about Anton,’ Tan said.

‘Yes. And I don’t know why.’

‘Because you are stupid.’

He looked at Tan for elaboration, but Tandje, the bastard, pulled out a flute and went on to play Siva a tune.

***

It wasn’t any better a few hours later when they were ready to depart. The ostriches were in the docking area, too, and Anton was staring at them with a mixture of horror and curiosity on his face

Fran pushed past Anton, colliding with his shoulder as they went to their ostrich. Then they leapt into the saddle. It was the epitome of rider grace, that leap. They fixed their headscarf and put on their goggles, then turned to Dandolo. He couldn’t see their eyes. ‘We’ll be waiting for you, D. Or not. Don’t be late. We have a schedule to make.’ They nudged Notol into motion, then took the rider horn off their belt, sounded one long signal, and were off, a dust cloud after them and other ostriches.

‘What was that about? Who’s that?’ Anton was rubbing his shoulder.

Dandolo sighed. He felt like his chest was too full of sighs. ‘Frances. They are my chief rider.’

‘What’s their problem?’

‘I’ll figure it out.’

They went into their sandsail, and Dandolo was grateful that Anton didn’t ask more about Fran.

He did, however, ask another thing. ‘Where are we going?’

Dandolo handed over the route sheet to him.

Silence. ‘Anton?’

‘I can’t read.’

‘Do you want me to teach you?’

‘Yes.’

***

Anton was a quick learner—but mostly when it came to the physical. He didn’t shy away from hard work, like lifting an ama to connect it, loading and unloading cargo—it earned him a measure of respect from Dandolo’s pilots. Dandolo suspected that Anton was doing it partially to earn it.

He asked clever questions many of which Dandolo left without answer, for the reason that Anton hadn’t seen Noctis yet. Anton didn’t seem offended. Trust came to him harder and he understood distrust.

However he was endlessly frustrated by letters. Their shapes eluded him, and so did spelling: he couldn’t understand why a sound wasn’t always depicted by an appropriate letter. He spoke both Upper and Lower Abundancean (‘And a Swearcean,’ as Anton said with a smirk), with eloquence that told Dandolo of exposure to good literature—but writing? Writing drove him to fits of silent rage.

Dandolo decided to teach him Nocto—just the script for now—and the Caravaner shorthand. The delight on Anton’s face when he made one stroke more than necessary and was told that it was not a mistake and variability was built-in into both systems, was priceless.

Dandolo liked their lessons. When the caravan stopped during the coldest hours of the night in a cave or a small canyon or a crater, they got together on the hammock stretched on their ’sail. Past the initial aversion to touch and despite the expected awkwardness after Dandolo rejecting him, Anton had turned to be very tactile, seeking his company at night, his thermoregulation shot—though Dandolo liked to think it was not only the practicality of cuddling together under a thick blanket, the ’sail’s solar generators keeping a bubble of warmth around them. Anton was getting less pale, even with all the grumbling about needing to apply mole grease on skin to prevent a burn.

They snuggled in the hammock, Anton tucked under his arm, or both of them leaning on the ama for stability. Anton tracing shapes on the datapad or reading, with Dandolo correcting him, the blue light of the lamp on the mainsail making it appear as though the world was theirs alone.

Fran wasn’t talking to him at all aside from strictly caravan business.

On the twelth night Dandolo was teaching Anton the merchant sigils.

‘You would need it in case it would be required of you to sign things in my name, or accept things for me. Read this. It’s my name.’ He wrote the individual parts of his sigil and showed Anton the datapad.

‘Pa-on?’ Anton read with uncertainty, and his face brightened at Dandolo’s nod, even though pronunciation needed to be corrected. ‘I thought your name is Dandolo. Is it your family name?’

‘I don’t have one. This is a…’ He tapped the datapad. ‘A professional moniker.’ He didn’t know that he could explain all shades of meaning of that. He didn’t know whether Anton would need or want that. ‘It means “peacock”.’

‘What’s a peacock?’

He didn’t have an encyclopedia on his datapad, so he tried to describe it to the best of his ability.

Anton snorted and clasped a hand over his mouth, but his eyes were twinkling above it, then he said, ‘So you’re a terribly-sounding flashy bird, huh? I can see that.’

Dandolo smacked him on the arm, but he wasn’t offended. ‘They are very fancy. Now look, this is what it looks like turned into a sigil.’

‘I’ve seen this!’ Anton noted. ‘On the papers. But it also has, uh…’

Dandolo smiled. Anton was observant and had a good memory—though not for areographical objects. The plains were a confusing mystery to him.

Dandolo finished the sigil, drawing a triangle around it and filling parts of it. ‘Like this?’

‘What does this triangle mean?’

Dandolo frowned, tapping the datapad with the stylus again.

Anton sighed, handing his head. He needed shaving again. ‘Another of the trade secrets?’

‘In a way.’ Dandolo couldn’t explain it without explaining… everything. Giving over his city. Anton wouldn’t understand.

Maybe one day.

Anton shifted, jostling the hammock. ‘Should I get a merchant moniker?’

Dandolo knew they simply switched topic, and he was… grateful. He couldn’t cross that chasm this early. ‘Yes, we can.’ He thought a few moments, then wrote the individual runes.

‘Talpa?’ Anton read aloud, a slight questioning inflection at the end.

Dandolo grinned. ‘It means “mole”.’ He made a quick sigil out of it.

‘Hey!’ Anton jabbed him, and he tried to restrain Anton, but the Ophirian was strong like a mole, no doubt here.

They wrestled on the hammock, balance thrown off by the unsteady nature of the surface under them, until they couldn’t coordinate any limbs anymore because most of their energy was being spent on laughing.

Anton picked the datapad again, his chest heaving with breathless laughs still, looked at the sigils. ‘It’s like yours.’

Which was exactly Dandolo’s intention, but he wasn’t about to admit it. ‘Do you like it?’

‘Does my opinion matter?’

‘Of course. It’s supposed to represent you, and if you don’t like it, why even have it?’

‘What if I picked some and then fell out with it?’

‘You change it. There are those who design it, they can offer variants.’

‘So, that’s it? This sigil is enough for deals, even though anyone might draw it?’

‘It generally is.’

‘But people might abuse it. Why won’t they?’

‘Because doing bad things makes you feel bad. Doesn’t it?’

Anton copied the sigil thoughtfully. ‘That’s a strange outlook. Some people don’t feel bad at all. And evil is subjective.’

‘Be kind,’ Dandolo said gently.

Anton looked at the datapad thoughtfully, as though it held answers, then his gaze turned to Dandolo, and he shook his head. ‘No. No, Dandolo. I don’t know what world you live in, but in mine, you can’t afford kindness.’


	6. Chapter 6

Dandolo hated independent states—which probably was hypocritical, coming from him, a born and raised member of the oldest of the independent states. And he didn’t resent the few, usually short-lived, non-incorporated towns merchants often used as stops and provided trade for. He greatly admired the worm-hunters—fellow nomads, strange and secretive as they were…

All right, he had to reiterate it: he hated Morning Glory alone. He hated that place with a passion, with every thread of the sails of his heart, hated it like a storm locus hated cold, hated it… very much.

If Ophir was raising the destitute and pushing them into crime, Morning Glory attracted those who were criminals not out poverty. If there was a place where people didn’t feel bad for doing bad, it was here.

And yet, it was an important stop in the Southern hemisphere. Not just because it was the only stop before kilometres of wasteland—caravaners knew how to deal with days, weeks of not seeing human habitation.

It was that one had to go to Morning Glory in order to pay.

Otherwise the caravan could be raided—at night, at day—whenever. They could fight, could try to get away—but the Morning Glory thugs didn’t want the cargo. They wanted to teach a lesson. ‘Pay us, or you’ll be lucky to get away intact.’ There was a group of cannibals among them.

Noctian merchants figured that it was easier to pay. Morning Glory wouldn’t push—of course, everyone had their limits and they wouldn’t want to find a fleet of Noctians on their doorstep one day.

Even if Dandolo was so, so tempted. But his ’sails wouldn’t be enough.

Noctis wasn’t ideally pure either. Dandolo himself was an example, smuggling Anton out, bringing not exactly allowed goods where they shouldn’t have been brought.

But this was…

This was people who understood power in the only meaning of that word.

This was sleazy, dirty glances crawling over his pilots, his riders, his ostriches and ’sails. Over his own form. It was lying to protect his own people. It was turning himself inside out to do that.

Seasons ago, when he had been Faradeas’s property, he had been _scared_ when they visited Morning Glory: his feet heavy, his skin crawling, his neck burning with the eyes trained on him, a watery feeling in his stomach. His head swimming with it.

Seeing the flower tattoo that Faradeas had tried to hide under high collars, everywhere in this place.

He had told himself that Faradeas wouldn’t give him over if any of those people asked—but a tiny part of him had been convinced Faradeas _would_. Would have given him to his old friends. They wouldn’t have broken him, but to give him over just to save his caravans… Would Dandolo have agreed to it? Gone willingly to serve his master’s plans? If they had threatened Tan, Sofi, Fran, anyone else—he would have.

He would have never forgiven himself if he could have spared someone but hadn’t. His anger at Faradeas, at this sick village was an entirely different issue.

Currently they had been stranded here for seven days already—another thing Dandolo hated. How _slow_ it was, pseudo-hospitality making up for the lack of any real warmth.

At least Fran wasn’t there for all of it. They were supposed to arrive in a few days, and the caravan to leave with them. Dandolo had enough of their friendship falling apart, and he didn’t know whether he could salvage it, and he didn’t need that one distraction when he was in this place.

He ran a hand over his hair. It was now in braids, made for him by Anton. It felt fitting, that Anton would braid his hair while he shaved Anton’s handsome head.

Maybe he was losing a friend and couldn’t stop it—but he had found another. The plains taught to let go.

It was the only good thing about this, it seemed. Anton’s presence by his side. But it was not without problems either. Dandolo had had to hire bodyguards, the Troupe—because their disguise was one of the things Morning Glory understood: posing as his harem, his entertainers, drawing attention to themselves. Dandolo felt sick. He hated using people like that, even though the Troupe existed exactly for this: putting on a show while providing protection.

The storm season was drawing close—he could feel it in the change in the wind, in his bones. And he didn’t want to spend it here. He wanted to go home.

Noctis was calling to him.

And it was… He didn’t know what to do about Anton. It wasn’t too early—but there was Fran.

The leaders of the Troupe, a brother and a sister, were here not for the first time: many merchants hired them when they went to Morning Glory. And the brother was rather handsome. It was yet another problem.

_‘We don’t sleep with our business partners and we don’t sleep with those dependent on us!’_

_‘Yeah, and those severely underdressed boys and girls that flock around you don’t share your bed!’_

_‘They don’t! They are my bodyguards!’_

_‘Like fuck—’_

_‘Language!’_

He didn’t need that, and worse, he hadn’t anticipated that fight. Hadn’t anticipated that Anton would attempt…

By the spirits, Dandolo wanted to get back on the road. He wanted to get out of this place, where he had to pretend. He wanted to share a hammock with Anton every night, talking until the sun rose.

‘The boss will receive you now.’

He nodded to one of the thugs, schooling his face into a mask, and got up from the settle. It groaned under him. Everything here was falling apart, as though the… denizens didn’t care about their surroundings. He doubted they did.

He followed the thug into the ‘reception room’—a vast chamber dark from smoke of cigars that reminded him of Faradeas, the reek of stale sweat and old meat. Foul. Filthy.

He tried not to let his gaze wander to black batons everyone here was equipped with.

He tilted his chin up, surrounded by the Morning Glory thugs with eyes of petty killers. Members of the Troupe in their bright clothes were dispersed over the room. Dandolo went over to one of the more luxurious settles—‘luxurious’ simply meaning that it was big. To the man sprawled upon it.

The boss, such a loud word for someone who killed, threatened, bribed his way to the top—and even the top was not steady.

It took Dandolo every thread of will to not strangle Mercy. The bastard didn’t get up and didn’t offered a seat. ‘Let us strike a bargain, Mercy,’ Dandolo told him. ‘We have a long travel ahead, and we need to hit the road.’

Mercy smiled and spread his hands. Dandolo tried not to look at him too hard. Or anything here. He didn’t want to remember any of this. ‘But you said it yourself that you are waiting for your birds. We are only glad to entertain you here while you wait, dear.’

He lets out a breath. Slowly. ‘Yes. I said that. If you are not to voice the sum, excuse me, I’m rather tired and have things to do. I live by the caravan time, you see. Good evening.’ He nodded shortly and turned to go.

‘When you belonged to Far…’ His wrist was caught. He froze. ‘When you belonged to Far, you were sweeter,’ Mercy murmured with a smile.

Dandolo could feel his smile, in the tone, in the words dripping syrup. He dropped his gaze to his wrist, fingers pale against his skin. It didn’t feel like it was attached to him. He watched as one crooked finger brushed his wrist.

‘I don’t belong to him anymore,’ he heard himself say. His voice was not attached to him either. Too calm.

‘Exactly. Perhaps now you would—’

Another hand circled the hand on his, paler than Dandolo’s, and bruised. ‘Sorry, _boss_. I’m afraid he’ll be occupied otherwise.’

Dandolo looked at Anton, and Anton was looking at Mercy.

Mercy let go of Dandolo’s hand. ‘Ah. Well, my bad, boys. Go on and have fun while you wait.’

Dandolo walked and walked and walked until he was out in the docking area. He wanted to be as far away from here as possible. He was tempted to simply take his ’sail and ride, ride, ride. He wanted to scrub himself with coarse sand.

He wanted to step into the darkness of the Labyrinth, the whole world fading away.

He slid on the aka of the nearest ’sail, the vessel swaying slightly under his weight.

‘Dandolo?’

He startled, looking up, then sighed. ‘Anton.’ He didn’t notice him walking after.

Anton perched on the aka with him. ‘He touches you again, I’ll cut his hand off.’

Dandolo took his flask from his belt and drained it, but it didn’t wash away the foul taste in his mouth. ‘I can protect myself.’

Anton stiffened beside him. He had removed the sleeves of his tunic, and his bare shoulder brushed Dandolo’s. ‘You can thank me.’

Shadow. He ran a hand over his face. ‘Thank you. And I’m sorry.’

Anton was a comfort by his side. Dandolo wanted… He wanted out.

Anton shifted, and a bag of orange slices appeared in his hands. Dandolo couldn’t help but smile as he accepted it—a peace offering. ‘Go catch some sleep,’ he instructed Anton. ‘Knowing Fran, they will arrive ahead of schedule, and then we will be…’ He trailed off, closing his eyes briefly. Noctis. _Home_. Could he bring Anton home already?

He opened his eyes again, looked at Anton, and something in Anton’s face shut down. ‘And then we’ll be off, right?’

Dandolo forced himself to smile. ‘Right, _talpa_.’

Anton pushed the whole bag into his hands, even though Dandolo doubted he would be able to eat much, and got up. ‘All right.’ Anton lingered.

The sand-coloured eyes had some indescribable sadness in them, and Anton looked indecisive. Then he moved abruptly, warm hand coming to Dandolo’s head, and kissed him on the forehead. ‘Мне тоже жаль, брат.’

Dandolo watched him go, then threw a slice into his mouth, the sweetness a little better than nothing, and got to work.

***

The docking area was blissfully devoid of people, and Dandolo found comfort in manually checking the cargo. It was mostly a mindless work: check the lists of cargo, find the actual cargo, check its state, check it off.

He found that some parts had been swapped between the ’sails but had not been transferred between individual ’sails lists. Travels were somewhat chaotic, and things like that happened.

But then, he had found something else, and it turned a mindless work into a wild chase and checking and double checking and triple checking. Dandolo went down the logs of transactions up to the fateful trip to Ophir, nearly two seasons ago. Then up to the moment they had left Noctis.

He calculated. And then again. And again, even though there was no mistake the previous two times.

There was no mistake.

Just small transactions, signed with his sigil.

He had delegated cargo checks to Anton because he had such a good memory.

Dandolo leaned on the hull of the gondola, his eyes squeezed shut. The sun was rising. He didn’t need to be outside to know it, to feel it like he felt storms forming, like he felt onsets of quakes.

A sandsinger, with mutation somewhere along his bloodline. An anomaly, and indispensable in caravan

travels. A slave who became a merchant. Continuing the legacy of one hundred seasons of travel. But one cannot be a travelling merchant on their own. Noctis wouldn’t have been born without a community, cooperation. Trust.

He sat there, and the sun was rising beyond the walls of Morning Glory.

The latest transaction had happened here.

Traded in this _filth_.

Tan’s voice pulled him out of the depths. ‘Dandolo? You wouldn’t believe who has— _Dandolo_?’

He realised his hands were cramping from how tight his fists were. He looked up at Tan, even as his vision blurred. ‘Bring Anton here.’ He couldn’t recognise his own voice. ‘Even if you have to drag him out of bed. Do not let anyone inside, and if the thugs try to get here, shoot them.’

Tan nodded and disappeared.

Dandolo moved to a small desk, put the datapad down on it. The sun was rising.

He remembered the wonder on Anton’s face when he had seen that sunrise, in the cave.

The doors opened, then closed. Dandolo didn’t pick the datapad again.

‘Dandolo.’ Anton stood there, without sleeves, a question on his face.

At first, Dandolo couldn’t say anything. The memory of Anton’s kiss, so awkward and genuine, felt like an illusion. Had everything been just an illusion?

He wanted to scrub himself, like after Mercy’s touch.

‘How long have you thought I wouldn’t notice?’ he found himself saying.

Anton’s eyes avoided him.

‘Don’t look away!’ He startled both of them with the shout.

Something twisted in Anton’s face. He became distant, distasteful, his face closing off. ‘It is not theft. It was my cut, and I could do anything I wanted with it.’

Dandolo slammed his fist on the desk, and the pain cleared the blurriness before his eyes. He felt like he was caught in a storm. Howling in his ears. ‘It isn’t your cut until I release your assets!’

Anton clenched his fists, squared his shoulders. Like a mole prepared to attack. ‘It _is_ my cut. I just took it when I wanted. If you don’t see opportunities, that’s your problem.’

‘You could have come to me! You know you could have asked for your assets and I would have given you a part!’

‘And then lectured me on what I bought?’

‘ _What_ did you buy?’

Anton looked away, then back at him. Stubborn. ‘Whatever gives the biggest profit.’

What did give the biggest profit?

What was the trade in Morning Glory?

Dandolo’s his lips grew cold. ‘You couldn’t. _What did you trade for here?_ ’

‘We are merchants.’ Anton shrugged, and Dandolo hated it more than anything else in his life. That shrug. Like it was nothing. ‘Profit is everything—’

‘I don’t care about profits, Anton! _You broke your word!_ Partners! We shared everything!’ He felt how his face broke, the mask of anger shattering. ‘What did you want that I wouldn’t share with you?’

‘Noctis.’

Dandolo stared. The word so quiet and loud at the same time.

Anton’s eyes were light like the sands. Boring into him. ‘You wouldn’t share you city with me. You don’t trust me.’

Dandolo gripped the desk, his face aching from how tightly his jaws were clenched. He didn’t care how Anton knew. He hanged his head, braids falling over his shoulder. So heavy. Everything was so heavy. There was sand clogging his chest.

‘You are going back to Ophir.’

‘What.’

He didn’t look at Anton and said more loudly, ‘You are going back to Ophir.’

‘No. No! You can’t! You can’t send me away!’ Something broke in that voice, and Dandolo glanced up. The light eyes were fierce and bright and wet. ‘You can’t… Don’t send me away!’ Anton’s voice cracked again. He wasn’t the stubborn statue, the living rock anymore. His body was leaning forward, hands lifted as though he wanted to reach out.

Dandolo steeled his heart. He had walked into the darkness, and the darkness had lingered in him. He swallowed sand, and it scraped his throat. ‘I carry my city with me—and you are carrying yours. You didn’t trust me, and I can’t—I will never—trust you again. You are returning whence you came.’

‘No!’

Dandolo looked over Anton’s shoulder at Fran, who had slipped in, the headscarf undone, gloves still on their hands, the horn on their belt. He met Fran’s eyes, and they were just as unyielding as he felt. Dandolo looked back at Anton. ‘Fran will take you to Ophir. Leave him at the Underworks, and then return home.’ He looked away.

‘Dandolo!’

He had stepped into the darkness. It was always in him, and he could wrap himself in it against that pleading voice.

‘I’ll find your precious city,’ Anton hissed behind him. ‘And you won’t deny me entry.’

Dandolo worked his jaw, trying to make it move. ‘You will return to Ophir. And you won’t step out of it. If you try to do business away from it, I will know. And I will come after you.’

‘Попробуй.’

Dandolo went to his waka, setting up the mainsail, covering the passenger seat. He didn’t need it anymore.

‘Dandolo, where are you going?’

He pushed the ’sail out, ignoring Tan. It was a significant weight, but it felt good. ‘We are leaving.’

‘What about the tribute?’

‘No tribute. Nothing. We are leaving right now.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Home. We are not going south.’

He hopped into the gondola, putting the goggles on. The sails spread and caught the emerging sunlight. He didn’t wait for the wind—he engaged the solar generators and took off, going faster, faster, until the wind was blowing around him.

It couldn’t drown out the howling in his head.

***

Being home didn’t feel like home. He was unloading when the rest of his flotilla arrived, and he ignored Tan’s questions, ignored everyone. Just got to work, unloading the cargo, checking it off on the datapad even though the full list was lodged in his head.

‘Dandolo.’

He sighed and put down a crate. ‘Leave me alone, Tan. Please.’

Tan’s eyes were soft. ‘I know. I will. The Council is gathering in six days.’

He closed his eyes, breathed again. ‘I’ll be there, Tan. Thank you.’

Ey lingered, and he wanted to ask em to leave. Ask everyone to leave.

‘Dandolo. Fran has arrived.’

His face was numb. He nodded. ‘Thank you.’

‘You should see them. Right now.’

He frowned. There was urgency in Tan’s face. Something was wrong, even though he didn’t know what _else_ could be wrong. He left the docking area, pushing past people, stumbling over them. Then he heard the ostriches, their cries, and the clamour of people tending to them.

Fran, their small figure with the crimson headscarf.

As though sensing him, they turned to him. Their goggles were off, their tunic so very dusty, and a part of their scarf covering their mouth. They must have ridden at break-neck speed.

Dandolo strode to them. They looked away. ‘It is done.’

He knew. He knew. But it was not…

The scarf was dotted with blood. It was just dark spots on the crimson fabric, but he could recognise it anywhere. He pulled the edge off, took Fran’s chin in his hand.

The lines were fresh, long and dark—knife cuts. He knew where they had come from. Fran was not meeting his eyes. Dandolo grimaced and stepped away. ‘You raised your hand on him.’

‘Deserved it.’ They looked up. ‘D? What’s… What’s wrong?’

The whole world felt like it was just a dream. Just a dream, distant, something he couldn’t control. ‘You were supposed to get him there and leave. Nothing else.’

‘D, I—’

‘Go. Go away now. Please.’ He turned away. He was shaking. ‘If he died…’

‘He deserved it, D!’

The world around them hushed. Dandolo rubbed his left shoulder. It felt heavy.

A storm was coming.

‘D?’ They put a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged them off. He started walking, past the people in the Docks, down the bridges and winding streets, through the Caravanserail, on and on, until he came to the Red Gates.

The guards didn’t stop him.

He stepped into the darkness.


	7. Interlude

 

‘Sofi, love of my life, what do you think of that farm?’

‘A bit too remote for my taste.’

‘Sofi, I don’t know about Aya, but I think it’s a steal. And the view is stunning.’

‘It’s the _principle_ of things, Tan: you gotta argue with your wife once in a while. So, Aya, arguing it is.’

‘I call ostrichshit, Sofi, but all right.’

Their voices were washing over Dandolo, distant, unreal, even though there was not much interference.

The howling around him was more real, the minute shifts of wind calling for him; the shifted his body and the hoversail without even thinking, bending at the knees, pushing, pulling, adjusting the sail. His ear was stinging a little from the most recent Triangle, and his left cheek was numb, but it, too, felt distant.

Around him, a sandstorm was raging, crimson and loud. It was real. The only real thing in the world, calling for the darkness inside Dandolo.

He didn’t try to get rid of it since he had returned from the Labyrinth.

‘Three by five,’ he commanded calmly into the link, then watched on the HUD as his fleet adjusted the course per his command.

They were sailing blind.

No radars, no long-distance radios, no compass. No visuals, for the sky was dark, and it was dark during the day and the night, and there was no difference. They had sailed out of Noctis with lights on, but he had commanded lights off three hours ago. It was night. He could tell.

He could always tell.

They were trusting him to not drive them into a wall of a crater or into a chasm.

He didn’t even need the HUD. He knew.

He always knew.

The darkness was calling for him.

He shifted his weight on the board, his grip on the boom sure. The glide on the hoversail was different from the usual sandsails, but it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered except for their mission.

Their duty.

 _His_ duty.

‘T minus forty,’ he said in the link. He was breathing evenly, the filters on his mask working perfectly. ‘Cut the banter.’

It didn’t really matter to him, and he didn’t think their target would be listening—he didn’t _care_ if they were listening, if they noticed the fast fleet.

He didn’t care.

‘T minus thirty.’

He was gliding, the howling of the wind in his head, his bones.

‘T minus twenty. Run checks.’

He listened to the checks, the formation scheme in his head and his HUD marked with responses. They were sailing perfectly, going just as he had calculated. He was very good at that.

He always knew.

Darkness was in him.

The mark on his left shoulder was aching, but it was a good ache, cool and tingling.

‘T minus ten.’

His heart wasn’t racing. His body wasn’t thrumming with anticipation. He was like the wind, cool, fast. He didn’t care.

He would tear them all apart.

He banked, breaking away from the formation, steering them with verbal instructions. A great shadow grew in front of them—a ridge wall.

And then, the faint glow of three domes. A few searchlights were glowing—as though they could penetrate the storm. The fleet fanned out in front of the dome.

Dandolo shifted his weight onto the brakes, and his sail slowed down sharply.

The fleet parted for the heavy-duty ’sail, but instead of the usual cargo amas, it was carrying harpoon cannons. Dandolo stopped to the side of it, his hoversail bobbing in the air gently. He hopped down. Behind him, he felt living signatures moving: his people, running the last checks.

The harpooned ’sail was thrumming slightly with the generator working. It juddered when claws shot down and dug into the sand.

‘Ready?’ Dandolo asked. He knew they were, but they expected him to check.

‘Ready, _me Doxe_.’ Tan.

‘Doxe!’ Sofi.

And then others. ‘Doxe!’

‘Doxe! Doxe!’

It rose against the backdrop of howling—but it was not right.

His mission was not this.

He raised his fist, and a roar found it’s way up his throat, howled into his ears by the wind, ‘Fury of Mars!’ It rolled like a thunder, like a quake.

And an echo answered, ‘Fury!’

‘Fury of Mars! Fury!’

‘Fury!’

_Fury!_

He brought his fist down.

The harpoons shot past him and lodged themselves in the central entrance of the dome, the chains taut. Then the chains pulled. The wall twisted, bulged out of shape. The was probably screeching, but he couldn’t hear it behind the howling of wind. It tore free and the ’sail dragged it away.

‘ _Me Doxe_.’

He cycled through the frequencies the dome might be using. There was a clamour already.

The darkness was in him.

‘Release the hounds.’

They rushed past him like harpoons before, quick, powerful—swift crimson shadows born of the storm. He felt them rush in, full of anger, full of hunger. They were the storm.

He tuned in on the dome system, listening to the frantic calls, orders. Screams.

He shrugged the rifle into his hands, checked his knives. Similarly dressed and equipped shadows moved beside him, five, ten, two tens, more. He switched to their channel. ‘Leave nobody alive. No mercy. Only fury.’

‘Fury of Mars!’

‘Fury!’


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the start of Part 3.  
> It's connected to [Unfashioned Creatures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14395920).

 

‘Dandolo!’

He jerked awake. Had he abandoned his duties? No, Faradeas wouldn’t be pleased—

There was no Faradeas. No anymore, not for seasons.

His head was pounding, and every movement sent needles of pain through his body, and his mouth tasted foul like he’d eaten a pickled locust. Despite his state, that part of him that always knew the wind, the ground, the storms—that part was already awake. He wanted to scream. To throw himself out of the cave.

To throw himself into the depths where darkness would envelop him.

Something clanked. Jugs.

‘Dandolo! Get up!’

He tried—but before he could make a good effort, he was yanked up. He yelped, his head exploding, but the world didn’t spin because it _never_ spun for him. The thing in his brain was kicking him to get a grip.

He opened his eyes carefully.

Sofia was moving over the cave, picking jugs, peering into them and emptying them on the ground, then putting them into the corner. She was already dressed in the pilot gear, a pair of goggles on her neck.

It was quiet and dark, the lights of Noctis visibly below from the mouth of the cave, but Dandolo could feel the sunrise approaching. Morning fog was already gathering in torn wisps. He walked very carefully to the mouth of the cave, peering down the drop.

‘If you decide to throw yourself out, you’ll spare me the trouble of dragging your ass to the ’sails,’ Sofi said from behind him.

Dandolo winced. He realised he was cold, and he wrapped his arms around himself. It was winter, and up here, in the wall of the canyon above the city, the rock lost heat fast at night.

He could have frozen to death.

Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad.

‘I’m sorry, Sofi,’ he murmured.

She stopped by him and pushed his gear into his arms. ‘Don’t be sorry. Get dressed. Since you haven’t woken up earlier and I had to spend two hours looking for you and then another hour getting up here, you don’t get a shower.’

He winced again, imagining being stuck in the gondola like that.

But there would be nobody to complain about it. He would be alone.

‘Perhaps you could…’ Go without him.

Sofi walked to him, fists on her hips, a frown on her face. ‘Look, _rico_ , when we returned, when the Council voted you out and we let Tan go…’ Something died in her voice, and she briefly looked away, then back at him, her face softer. ‘After all that, you asked me to let you be. One season, you said. And I agreed. I said nothing when you decided that the best way to preserve your bright brain was marinating it in spirits. I said nothing when they had to start calling in the Palatial guard to pick you off the cliffs. I said nothing when you clashed with Fran over that. But it’s winter now. The summer has passed, and you have to return.’

Each word felt like being doused in flames, filling him with hot shame.

Sofi sighed, hanging her head. ‘If you decide to blow it, _rico_ , _you_ are the one explaining to Aya why I spent so much time trying to convince her I needed to leave my wife and our daughter for a season, only for the reason of that leave calling it off at the last moment.’

He ran a hand over his face, winced at the stubble on his chin. His braids were a mess. ‘I missed your daughter’s birth day.’

‘Yeah, well. I wouldn’t have let her first meeting with _sio_ Dandolo being soured by that _sio_ being piss-drunk.’

‘I’m—’

‘Stop saying you’re sorry! Start doing something to fix it! And right now, that means getting dressed and going down to the Docks!’

Dandolo ducked his head. ‘Thank you, Sofi.’

She glared. ‘Fifteen minutes. The sunrise is close.’

He started sorting through the bundle she had pushed at him, then asked, ‘How did you get up here?’

Sofi, standing by the mouth of the cave, rolled her eyes. ‘Ropes, _rico_. Most of us can’t scale the sheer walls of the canyon without ropes at the very least.’

He smiled.

‘Oh, and one more thing.’ Sofi reached into her tunic, hesitated, then pulled out a small triangle, and Dandolo’s heart started beating faster. ‘Here. Another one.’

Dandolo put down the gear hastily, then accepted it with both hands, but didn’t open it right away. Sofi nodded and went to the opening. He only then noticed the rope attached to her belt. She dropped out of view.

He looked down at the triangle in his hands. Meticulously, if messily folded, so soft and vulnerable, half of his palm in size. Dandolo’s sigil on the flap.

He had three of such triangles now.

He hadn’t told Sofi that the first of them had been… not the reason he had turned to drink, but one of them, the last grain of sand that had started the rockslide and grinded the mountain to dust. It had arrived some weeks after the end of the storm season. He had hoped… He hadn’t know what he had hoped for. Some news, any news, even though the chance of finding one man in a city as big as Ophir was small.

He hadn’t been prepared for a letter from Anton himself; handwriting uneven, some characters mirrored, a mix of Upper and Lower Abundancean and the Nocto script. A few mistakes.

He knew it by heart now, not only because it was rather short, but because he had read it again and again so many times that the edges of the cheap paper had frayed, the rusty ink faded in places.

_That was not your place to raid—but a shame that I didn’t witness it._

_Congratulations on being chosen as the Prince—too bad they stripped it off you so soon. Nobody likes murderers, right?_

And, in lieu of a name—a sigil.

He had dreams—of Anton, of their quiet nights, of the raid and screams filling him to the brim. Of Tan’s death. Of Noctis standing over him and reciting the list of his crimes—while a heavy black hand lay on his left shoulder, a spicy-wet scent filling his nostrils.

Dandolo ran his hands over the new letter, the paper of a better quality than the first letter, smooth under his fingertips—but the ink the sigil had been written in was still cheap and flaky. He didn’t even know how to send a reply: the merchants who had brought the first and second letters, had said that someone had approached them with the triangles. Dandolo’s questions had revealed that those people had not been Anton.

But the letters were from him, Dandolo had no doubt. Anton was alive.

Dandolo put the new letter to the others—under his tunic, then fixed poleyns then his headgear, getting his braids under the scarf. He checked his mask and goggles, put the gloves on. His hip flask was empty, but he could fill it at the Docks. Briefly, he thought about filling it with something stronger than water—but he might as well have asked Sofi to shoot him, it would be a more merciful death.

Dandolo left the cave with ease, finding ledges and cracks to hold onto and fit his feet into crevices in the rock without thinking. He’d been doing it for one and a half seasons. Then he wound his way to the Docks. He thought that perhaps he should go and tell Fran he was leaving—but the Palatial guards had access to the Dock logs, and Fran could check for themself. Besides, they probably knew already.

The Docks were mostly empty: the bulk of caravans must have left hours ago, to make distance before sunrise. Only his sandsails were waiting, all ten of them—everything that was left—loaded and ready. He ought to give Sofi more than simple thanks. The pilots fell silent when he approached.

Dandolo tilted his head up, at the sails proper. The watchful _Ocio_ of the Labyrinth was peering into him. Dandolo ducked his head under that gaze briefly. Then raised his voice, even though it made his head ache, ‘Riding out in five minutes, everyone!’ He fixed the linkpiece in his ea, and heard Sofi’s voice, ‘Lead on, _rico_.’

It was good, being out in the open again—but Dandolo felt unsteady in his gondola and couldn’t say why—until he realised that he was expecting… a different spread of weight across the vessel.

He had let Tan go—he should let Anton go, too.

‘ _Rico_ , have you ever been to Green Hope?’

He frowned at Sofi’s question, and at the fact that she used his personal link. ‘Twice, seasons ago. Why?’

‘We are not just making a stop there. We are to pick some things up. Look through our orders.’

How did Anton put it? Блядство. That’s why she had used his personal link. As the head of the caravan, he should have looked through the orders right away. Still, no better time than now. He flipped one-handed through the overview list. And frowned. ‘ _Sorela_? I don’t deal in food, even in dried.’

‘It was a last-minute addition, _rico_. And since you had been indisposed—’

He sighed.

‘—I opted to accept it.’

‘You could have rejected it.’

‘It’s a personal request. From Artair.’

Dandolo flipped to the details. Three bags of spices, that wasn’t a very big order, and Artair had caravans and contracts with other merchants that could deliver absolutely anything to him. ‘What does the old _kokka_ really want?’

Sofi didn’t reply right away. He heard her switching to the main channel and exchanging technical information on course correction— Oh, by the Shadow, he should have at least gotten to know all the pilots.

‘Things have changed, _fradelo_ , while you were _indisposed_ …’

He huffed. ‘All right, all right, I understand, you disapprove. Do move to the important part, please.’

‘The important part is, things have changed. Marcello is going to Green Hope, too.’

The name sparked something in his mind. ‘Artair’s son? He has decided to lead caravans? I thought he refused to have anything to do with his father.’

Sofi sighed. ‘He hasn’t changed in _that_ respect.’

He pondered on it. Then closed his eyes briefly. ‘You have dragged us into a conflict between them.’

‘What was I to do? And maybe at least you can show Marcello his place.’

He heard tension in her voice. ‘Sofi. Have you worked for him?’

‘Yes.’ The tension wasn’t leaving her voice. ‘One trip. He’s a bastard, Dandolo. One trip was enough.’

‘I’m not interested in your—’

‘He’s a slave-owner.’

Dandolo’s sandsail veered, and he hastened to correct the course. He took several breaths, listening to the wind, orienting himself against the sky and the ground, the weather and the sun. He was here. Faradeas was no more. Morning Glory was ashes. ‘It’s not illegal,’ he said quietly. No matter how much he wanted it to be—and now he had blown his chances of changing it as a Prince. But he couldn’t let Morning Glory stand either.

He needed a drink.

‘Dandolo. People like him should be illegal in general.’

‘If I get into trouble again, you will suffer, too,’ he replied, put the overview list away.

‘But if you help Artair, do this thing for him…’ She fell silent, and Dandolo… He could see it.

He sighed again. ‘Sofi. You can’t repair my reputation in the Council.’

‘Not everyone was against you,’ Sofi said. ‘Or have you forgotten everyone who had come to Morning Glory with you that night?’

He hadn’t.

He hadn’t asked the Council’s permission. He hadn’t asked their opinion or advice on his proposal.

He had only asked, ‘Who’s with me?’

‘I don’t want to ruin you,’ he told Sofi. ‘You have a family.’

‘I can decide for myself, thank you.’

He smiled, even though his heart was heavy. ‘Thank _you_ , Sofi. We’ll see. Six by eight to the right.’


	9. Chapter 9

Travelling helped, as, Dandolo assumed, Sofi hoped it would. But only in part. Visiting to outposts and towns, working in loading area, haggling, exchanging news and rumours was hard work that required concentration. But there was the travel itself, long hours with his own thoughts. He tried to let them go to the wind. To lose himself in the unchanging changes in the scenery. In the rhythm of travel, so familiar in his blood.

He wanted to drown it out, to stop thinking.

Moving helped: he wouldn’t dare drinking during the day hours, it was suicide. Midday sleep was oblivion, too, hot, uncomfortable, but knocking him right out.

Nights were worse. Much worse. He was cold no matter what he did, and couldn’t fall asleep alone, and he was thinking and thinking and _thinking_. In the darkness, because he couldn’t stand the lonely blue light of the lamp.

He wasn’t getting enough sleep.

He opened the third letter during one of those nights, huddled inside his gondola, trying to warm himself from the generators. He didn’t remember ever being so cold, even during winter season. He turned on the light on his shoulder, so small, a salt grain of star, but it was enough to read, and he took the letter out carefully. It was warm from being kept on his chest in the folds of his tunic.

The sigil rested on the flap. He opened it and tried to ignore the tremor in his hands. It was just because of the drink. Nothing else.

_‘Is it already awfully cold out there?’_

He wanted to say, ‘It is, _talpa_. There’s nobody to share the hammock with, nobody to keep the darkness at bay.’

He wanted to say, ‘I’m a murderer, _talpa_.’

He wanted to say, ‘I’m sorry.’

He wanted to say, ‘I miss you, Anton.’

He wondered what Anton would reply to that. Perhaps kill him on sight. Perhaps these letters, sent from nowhere to nowhere, were not meant to be read at all.

He folded the letter back, leaned back in the seat and turned the light off. He couldn’t sleep.

***

He was feeling more like himself by the time they got close to Green Hope. The prospect of getting into a fight with Marcello was… tempting. He announced on the main channel, ‘Whatever happens, do not engage Marcello’s people.’

‘You mean that we shouldn’t engage, even though _you_ might?’ Sofi asked. Her voice sounded incredulous.

‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ he instructed.

They stopped the sandsails in the docking area.

Green Hope wasn’t big enough to be tiered, although there was a processing facility. There were whole fields of photosynthesising plants, hydroponic farms—the most prolific farm on Mars, at least among those belonging to Corporations.

Dandolo thought about Anton’s words. Rationing system didn’t need to be used when Green Hope was producing enough, when Ophir and surrounding farms were producing enough, so it was either a very poorly managed system—or a deliberately created crisis. Starving out those who weren’t lucky to be higher up on the ladder. Forcing them to fight each other for scraps.

Dandolo suddenly realised that by sending Anton away he had forced him back into that life.

He got out of the gondola, taking the datapad with the cargo manifest and various papers with him. Abundance _loved_ papers. A docker pointed to him at a rather pinched-looking officer and told him she was the head of everything here.

She nodded to him with a slight frown, tight in her uniform and standing upright. ‘Lieutenant Irenka Major.’

He nodded in return. ‘Dandolo, merchant. You seem rather... confused by our arrival, Lieutenant.’

She looked up at the sails and the _Ocio_. ‘Yes. Your colleague said there would be nobody else. Are you having problems?’

Oh, it had started, then. ‘No. Our stop here was scheduled ahead of time.’

‘I was told everyone else cancelled.’

‘Our trip wasn’t.’ He smiled. ‘We won’t trouble you for long, Lieutenant.’

‘I hope not. Let us go to my office and I will check your papers.’

They settled in her office: a desk, cabinets, a banner with Abundance crest on it. Rather dusty. Both the Lieutenant’s chair and the guest chair were uncomfortable, cold. Very welcoming indeed. The office was connected to another room, and through an open door he saw a tiny kitchen. Dandolo calmly answered the standard questions, but the pinched look didn’t leave Lieutenant’s face. Dandolo decided to break the stalling. ‘Lieutenant Major? Is our presence unwelcome here?’

She put down the border papers she had been checking for the last ten minutes, and looked up at him. She had grey eyes and grey streaks on her temples, and he wondered how old she might be. Sixty seasons? And still a lieutenant.

‘It’s your colleagues, merchant,’ she said at last with a sigh.

He shrugged to not show his interest. ‘If he bothers you, just kick him and his caravan out. Less competition for me.’

Lieutenant smiled at that weakly, rubbed her forehead. ‘Forgive me, merchant. I, uh...’ She looked at the papers. ‘Sorry, your name is Dandolo?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. Just Dandolo. I don’t have a last name.’

She nodded, put the papers down again. ‘You must think me paranoid or inhospitable. Truth be told, it’s my first tour here. And— Oh, I am inhospitable. Do you want anything? You must be tired after the journey. Chicory? Cocoa?’

Dandolo wanted something stronger, but it would ruin everything, and he wasn’t to give any weapon against himself. ‘Cocoa, if it’s not troublesome.’

‘Oh, not at all.’

Dandolo watched her move about, to the kitchen, back, busying herself with the mundane. At last the sweet scent of cocoa wafter through the office, making it that much more welcoming. Dandolo accepted the mug (Abundance logo on the side, somewhat smudged).

‘I take it you know the one leading the other caravan?’ she asked, sitting down with another mug.

He nodded carefully. ‘I know the name, yes.’ Then softened. ‘We are as varied as any people, Lieutenant.’

She smiled. ‘Yes. I suppose.’

Something dawned on him. ‘You have never encountered the travelling merchants before?’

‘No.’

He curled his fingers on the mug, tapped a nail on it. ‘Forgive me if I’m prying, but are you Ophirian? You sound like one.’ He would never forget the certain heaviness of consonants—and ability to settle for the barest minimum. Perhaps he was wrong, though.

‘I am, Dandolo. It’s the first... The first I’m sent this far from home.’

Nearly by the border with Aurora, among strangers—most farmers and workers were born here. Alone, probably, and with a family back in the capital city.

Dandolo listened further.

‘My predecessor explained things to me, but I wasn’t... It’s not like the real thing.’ She sighed, drinking from her mug, picking at a chip on it. ‘Do you have rules of stay? How to... behave, how to be on the shore leave?’ she gestured vaguely.

‘Depends on individual agreements, but yes, we do. Be polite, don’t overstep boundaries.’ He shrugged.

‘And other rules? About accommodation?’

‘The general rule is, one day and night is on the host, including water if applicable, and provision, but everything over than that is paid for. Why? Does Marcello refuse to pay?’ He could use that. It was a break of the most basic rules, and the Council did not look kindly upon it.

‘It is not. It is…’ She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this.’

Dandolo watched her for a while. He tasted the cocoa, and it was just thick enough. He smiled. ‘Lieutenant? Do you want something to go along with your excellent cocoa? We have marzapan, it’s sweet, but not overly sweet.’

She looked at him with eyebrows raised. ‘Are you bribing me?’

He kept his smile.

She laughed. ‘You _are_ bribing me!’

‘Maybe a little,’ he admitted.

‘With sweets for cocoa?’

He shrugged and took another sip. ‘It’s excellent cocoa, as I said.’

Lieutenant shook her head. ‘You are certainly different.’

‘I certainly hope I’m different from Marcello.’

‘You know, I have a son your age, or maybe a little younger than you,’ she smiled gently, longing on her face.

Dandolo raised his eyebrows. He felt… He didn’t know how he felt, but something in his chest that he hadn’t noticed before eased at her words. ‘Is he in Ophir?’

She lowered her eyes. Moved all papers aside, put down her mug. ‘He is. Training. He is going to be a medic in the Army. He wants to help people and see the world.’

Dandolo smiled, though he felt like any army was a wrong place for such aspirations. ‘The world is full of wonders and people in need of help.’

They fell silent for a while.

‘Lieutenant?’ he called quietly. ‘If you have some problems with Marcello, you can tell me. Naturally, we would like to maintain good relationships, and if some merchant bothers you, kick him out.’ He deliberately said ‘he’. ‘He won’t bother you again.’

‘He is overbearing but I can deal with that. Is it common that such young people head caravans?’

Marcello was a year younger than him. Dandolo shrugged. ‘If you have the skills, the means to start and the inclination, there are no other barriers.’

She nodded. ‘I know it’s not my place to question it or even to comment on it, but the way he treats his… workers bothers me.’

The small pause before ‘workers’ hadn’t escaped Dandolo’s notice. Marcello used slaves.

‘We have mutants here. If he starts treating them like that, too…’ She look at him with poorly-hidden expectation.

Dandolo finished his cocoa. ‘I’ll do whatever I can, Lieutenant. Thank you for cocoa. We’ll start unloading, then?’

‘Yes. And make the order for the farm master, he’ll bring everything you need.’ She put his papers together and handed them over to him.

He got up.

‘Dandolo? There’s… There’s someone… I’m not sure. They look like they haven’t eaten in months. Marcello keeps them around himself at all times.’ She tilted her chin up and pointed at her neck. ‘They wear a thick collar, and it looks like it’s starting to fester.’

That was more than… _Nobody_ could do that. He hoped his face didn’t betray his anger. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll send the marzapan for you. A gift, and I won’t accept rejection.’ He let swiftly, sweeping his papers back, strode to the sandsails, ordered the unloading, then sat in his gondola.

His hands were trembling. He put one over his chest, feeling the faint outline of the letter triangles.

‘ _Rico?_ Dandolo, you okay?’

He didn’t look at Sofi. He couldn’t. He stuffed his hands under the seat. ‘Marcello is _abusing_ his slaves. A slave. I don’t know how many he has.’ He sat still for a moment, thinking, then got out of the gondola. ‘I need to deal with it.’

‘Dandolo. You can’t just—’

‘I can’t,’ he said. His throat was tight, and he could barely push words out. ‘You are right. I can’t let it be.’ He checked his knives and strode away.

But Sofi caught up with him. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Wherever Marcello is.’

‘Dandolo!’

He turned to her, but didn’t stop. ‘Look for someone with a metal collar, Sofi, but don’t engage without me!’

He had forgotten to ask Lieutenant Major where Marcello liked to hang out, but he had an idea. It was a bad idea, but he could control himself.

Maybe.

He strode to the nearest bar. There was usually such place in towns of certain size or distant enough from other civilisation. Sometimes, there was nothing else to do but drink.

‘Oh, I knew that if you came here, you’d find the bar right away.’

There was a group that was undeniably Noctians, in bright, glaring clothes. There was pride in wearing Noctian crimson, and joy in wearing blue—but there was no practicality in wearing it on the road, and no reason to impress anyone here.

Noctis existed as the link between people of Mars.

But this demonstration of wealth was the power that had sustained Morning Glory.

It made Dandolo’s teeth itch.

‘Marcello,’ he forced himself to say amiably. ‘I wouldn’t drink here even if it was the last drinking place on Mars. It stinks too much.’

Marcello—the brightest of the group in terms of colour but perhaps not in terms of mind—turned the shade of his crimson tunic.

A snort sounded from the side of the bar. Dandolo glanced at the figure seated there. They were certainly not of the _Ociolo_. For starters, no Noctian would wear their jacket open—with nothing underneath.

Dandolo turned his attention to Marcello—who was rising off his seat, but even at full height he was shorter than Dandolo. Dandolo usually didn’t care about his height—and sometimes it was a disadvantage if he had to fit into an unfamiliar sandsail—but now, he revelled in it.

‘I rather hoped you had drunk yourself to death,’ Marcello drawled. He said it in Upper Abundancean, no doubt performing for the small audience of farm workers seated here and there. Marcello’s hair was bleached by the sun on the hairline. Mole grease below his station?

‘And to lose an opportunity to stare you in the eye? No way!’ He dropped the veneer of friendly banter and bent to Marcello, barely holding back a snarl. ‘You are not above the law, Marcello. Your mistreatment is known.’

Marcello frowned. ‘What are you…’ Then his face brightened and he huffed. ‘What, you talking about my property?’

Dandolo closed his hand on his knife sheath—simply to stop himself from closing it on Marcello’s throat. ‘Yes. About your _property_. Your mistreatment will be known. I won’t stop, Marcello.’ He straightened up and nodded. ‘Good day to you.’

He strode out of the bar, his vision and his thoughts sharp from anger. He didn’t think he could have held back from strangling Marcello. He walked Green Hope for a while to refine his anger, to formulate a plan, then went to set the order with the farm master. They had to wait a day for the spices to be delivered.

He didn’t want to stay even a moment longer, but he wanted to resolve things with Marcello.

Somehow.

His link cracked. ‘ _Rico_.’

He leaned on the fence of a tomato patch. ‘Go on, _sorela_.’ Sofi sounded strange, tense. Might be that Marcello had made a move on them?

‘ _Rico_. We… I think we found the slave the Lieutenant was talking about.’

He closed his eyes briefly. ‘All right. Where?’

‘By the docks.’

He hastened there.

Marcello’s sandsails occupied most of the space, with Dandolo’s ten tucked in a corner. His pilots were trying to appear casual, but several pilots of Marcello’s were eyeing them and fondling various tools. A knife here, a wrench there…

But it was not that made Dandolo’s blood boil.

The slave stood there dressed in old caravaner garb, beaten and dirty from disuse, the simple dignity of clean clothing denied to them. Their head shaven unevenly, with nicks and scratches. Their eyes downcast. Notches on their temples. By the Shadow.

They were a Technomancer.

They wore a thick metal collar, and skin around it looked inflamed.

The crimson darkness rose in Dandolo’s head, howling. He made a step to them.

‘Now I wouldn’t do that!’

Dandolo closed his eyes briefly. Breathing. Breathing. Then opened them again, and looked at Marcello. His friends were also with him. Marcello glanced at the Technomancer. ‘If this _merda_ gets any closer to you, strike him.’

Dandolo forced himself to relax his jaw. Marcello didn’t matter now—the Technomancer did. Dandolo made another step, and they flinched away—just a fraction, but he noticed it. He wanted to wrap his fingers around Marcello’s throat—but it didn’t matter, nothing matter except for getting them out.

He forced himself to relax, to not look like a threat. ‘He ordered you to strike me,’ he said in a calm voice. ‘You can. You may. And I won’t stand here doing nothing, no. I’ll try to get away. I won’t make a generous gesture and buy you out either. But you know what?’ He extended a hand in the direction of his sandsails. ‘You see those ’sails? They are mine. And five of them, I give to you, with everything inside them.’

They looked up for the first time. They had sharp eyes and sharp features that no grime or dust could mar.

Dandolo didn’t relent. ‘No conditions. They are yours, and yours alone. You can do whatever you want with them: sell them, keep them, I don’t care.’

‘Now wait a—’

How did Anton put it? Dandolo turned to Marcello, and couldn’t stop his face from splitting into a smile. The darkness was howling. ‘Захлопнись, I’m not talking to you.’

‘Do you want me to write you the full cost of those sails and cargo?’

They nodded.

Dandolo wrote the number on the datapad, keeping it away from Marcello, then turned it to the Technomancer. They studied it without changing in the face, then nodded again. Dandolo put the datapad away.

‘Wait a minute, you can’t do that!’

He smiled and turned to Marcello again. ‘I can do whatever I want, it’s _my_ cargo. And I distinctly remember I told you to shut up, you pile of ostrich droppings!’

‘You did!’ called Lieutenant Major. She stood by the entrance to the docking area, lighting a cigarette—right near a No Smoking sign.

He smiled at her. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’ She looked rather entertained.

‘You have no right!’

Marcello definitely needed to learn to shut up. ‘I have every right.’ He looked at the Technomancer. ‘Do you know how much he paid for you?’

Another nod. They seemed to contemplate it, then slowly, very slowly turned to Marcello. Marcello did shut his mouth then. The Technomancer extended their hand towards the sandsails, like Dandolo had done before.

Marcello gaped. ‘You are selling them to me?’

The Technomancer shook their head and showed three fingers. Three fully loaded sails. It was enough to cover the cost, Dandolo supposed. The Technomancer knew better.

‘You are buying yourself out? You can’t…’

A crack of electricity raced over that extended hand, and Marcello reeled back.

Dandolo grinned. ‘I’ll happily be a witness to the deal.’ He looked at the Lieutenant. ‘You are an disinterested person, would you like to be the second witness?’

She put out her cigarette and smiled. ‘Of course, merchant. Very much disinterested.’

Marcello was even darker than the shade of his tunic. ‘I won’t let you—’

‘Hey shopkeeper!’ An unfamiliar drawl, much more natural than Marcello’s. The open jacket… Ah. Only now they were accompanied by chittering of two very red hounds. Without leashes. And they were carrying a rifle of a configuration Dandolo had never seen: a long rifle with a cross piece. ‘Your yapping is upsetting my dogs. Do you know what happens when a hound is upset?’

Both hounds lowered their heads, and their chittering turned into clacking sounds.

Their owner smiled pleasantly, but in their eyes was sharpness. ‘Get out! Until our friend here decides to make their deal.’

At least Marcello’s friends had the presence of the mind to drag him away.

The hounds dropped their aggressive stances and trotted to the Technomancer. They leaned to the hounds, but then hesitated.

‘You can pet them,’ their owner said. ‘They won’t bite you.’

The Technomancer crouched and reached out to the hounds, and they lowered their heads and nuzzled their hand.

Dandolo watched the Technomancer for a while, then looked at their owner. ‘Thank you. You didn’t have to do it.’

‘He’d get right back at you, you know. That bastard. I know the type.’ Their drawl was still present, handsome and warm.

‘Are you a hunter?’ Dandolo asked. The presence of the hounds spoke for it.

‘Of a kind.’ They grinned. ‘Tenacity Williams, just the right man to kick obnoxious brats.’

Dandolo looked him over. He was certainly older than Marcello, but not by much. Dandolo snorted. ‘Because you are an obnoxious brat?’

Tenacity’s grin widened. ‘Exactly!’

Both of them looked at the Technomancer. They were patting and stroking the hounds.

Dandolo sighed and walked to them carefully. ‘Would you like me to take off the collar?’

They tensed, still crouched, then nodded.

‘I’ll pull it apart slowly,’ Dandolo assured them. ‘I won’t hurt you.’ He stood behind the Technomancer, hooked his fingers under the collar, trying not to touch the skin, found the seam, then pulled. The metal came apart without much effort from his side. The skin under it was dirty and irritated, the Technomancer must had been wearing it for days or even weeks.

Dandolo had to stifle the urge to clamp that collar around Marcello’s throat. Very tightly. He stepped back, crumpling the piece of metal in his hand. ‘It should be washed,’ he said gently. ‘Whenever you are ready.’

He left the Technomancer with the dogs. They seemed more comfortable with the animals.

The hunter was watching the Technomancer with concern on his face.

‘Do you need a ride, Tenacity?’

The hunter shook himself. ‘No. Thank you. I have a ride. And I guess now you would be quite short of space, with three…’

‘Sandsails,’ Dandolo offered.

‘Sandsails gone. How is this going to go, exactly?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ll help finalise the deal. Marcello can’t opt out of it.’

‘Because this poor one was a slave?’ the hunter asked in a quiet voice.

Dandolo could feel his gaze, clever and unwavering like that of a hound. ‘Yes.’

‘Is it common among you? Slavery?’

He looked at the hunter. Tenacity had very light grey-blue eyes, like the first dregs of a sunrise. ‘It has been for ages. But it will change.’

‘Things that has been there for ages don’t change just because one or a few people want it.’

Dandolo smiled. ‘Aren’t you too young to be this pessimistic?’

Tenacity blushed. His face fast turning almost the shade of his hair. It was very handsome. ‘Shut up.’

The Technomancer got up, and Dandolo shifted his attention to them. They looked rather stiff.

‘Where do you want to go? We could bring you anywhere you want, or you could stay—’ Dandolo glanced at Lieutenant Major and was grateful when she nodded, ‘—right here. Your choice.’

They stood stiff. Dandolo was starting to suspect their neck was not the only part in pain. ‘No. With you.’ They glanced at the ’sail. ‘Don’t know how to ride.’

‘We’ll teach you if you want,’ Sofi showed up.

Dandolo asked, ‘Do you have a name?’

They stood there again, then shook their head.

Dandolo smiled. ‘Nameless, then. How does it sound?’

They nodded.

‘Before you go,’ Lieutenant Major said, ‘I insist that you make use of washing facilities. That… looks bad indeed.’

Nameless ducked their head, a frown twisting their features. ‘Thank you. If you go with me.’ They looked at Dandolo.

He tried not to show surprise. ‘All right. Now?’

A nod.

Green Hope, being a farm, was well-supplied with closed-cycle water, and he was glad for that. He picked his mole oil, went with Nameless back to the small office and through to the kitchen. There was a small bathroom adjacent to it.

Dandolo kept his distance from Nameless, careful not to crowd them in or speak loudly or touch. ‘Do you want me to leave you alone? Or do you want help?’

‘Help.’

It seemed Dandolo assumption about injuries was correct.

They started with divesting Nameless of their clothing. It was grimy, all dust, and revealed sand rashes all over their body, patches of tan telling of no mole grease being used—but it was not what shocked Dandolo into silence.

It was scars. Lots and lots of them, an entire web, winding white lines, as though… It reminded Dandolo of the things Technomancers he had seen had worn under their clothes. All those wired. Those scars looked old enough, maybe a year, white, like someone had decided to paint chaotically on skin.

As though someone had tried to electrocute them. But their palms were worse when Dandolo took them, covered by barely restored skin. ‘Do you feel anything?’ Dandolo tried to sound neutral.

The Technomancer looked away. ‘Pressure.’

A Technomancer was to be expected to have such burns, of course, but there was something unsettling about this web.

And Nameless turned away—in shame, Dandolo realised. Their body tense. Was that a result of an accident, a loss of control? He thought the bodyglove was supposed to protect them exactly in case of a discharge this massive.

But maybe it had been too massive, and aimed at them.

Dandolo didn’t ask anything. It was not his place to ask, and if Nameless wanted to talk about it, they would. Dandolo gave them the oil, told them how to apply it, ran the water and got to leave, when Nameless called, ‘Could I have a knife?’

‘What for?’

‘To redo my haircut.’

Dandolo looked over their patchy hair. ‘I’m not sure. I’m worried you might hurt yourself,’ he said honestly.

They bit their lip. ‘Won’t. My word.’

Dandolo nodded, then took his knife off his belt and gave it to Nameless handle-first. ‘I trust you.’

Nameless accepted the knife, but seemed hesitant. Dandolo waited.

‘Why did you help me?’ They kept their gaze down. He wondered whether looking up was something Marcello had punished them for.

‘If I said it was because it was the right thing to do, you wouldn’t believe me. So I say this: I was a slave, too. Take as long as you want. I’ll get to your sandsails.’

Nameless turned the knife in their hand. ‘Is my… presence required?’

Dandolo swallowed. His left shoulder was _burning_. ‘No. You don’t have to see him.’

‘Then please… Make the transfer for me.’

‘I will send someone with new clothes for you, too. And you may keep the knife, if you want. Take your time.’

He probably shouldn’t have left. But it felt like he owed Nameless his trust.

He was gearing himself up for another confrontation—but the presence of the Lieutenant, Dandolo’s pilots, and Tenacity and his hounds made the deal go smoothly. Marcello didn’t even talk much, and all his words were about the deal.

Dandolo suspected that, just like Tenacity had said, Marcello wouldn’t leave it at that. But for now, Nameless was safe—and Dandolo intended to protect them.

He returned to the docks, a thought forming in his head. It was… childish. But it seemed to him that it would be something Marcello would understand. He saw Sofi hauling one of the spice bags and strode to her. ‘May I open it?’

She made a face. ‘What for? To make us all sneeze? And it’s for the _kokka_.’

‘I remember. Just let me open it, all right?’

She shrugged, put it down. He opened the bag, then tugged a glove on and got a handful of black peppers. He carried them over to the sandsails that were now Marcello’s, crushed as much as he could between his hands and threw it over the seats.

Sofi snorted. ‘ _Rico_ , you are a child.’

‘He deserves it,’ he murmured, making sure it didn’t go into any machinery. He wanted to make life for Marcello uncomfortable—not to crash his ’sails.

There was a commotion, and Dandolo hastened to get away.

A newcomer strode in with a surety, and they were greeted by Tenacity’s hounds. They happily scrambled to the stranger’s side. Tenacity himself was close behind, grinning, and, catching Dandolo’s gaze, he said, nodding at the newcomer, ‘My ride.’

Dandolo looked at them again. They were not as broad as the hunter, but sturdy, with weathered skin of someone used to the plains, with a flask at their hip and a huge knife. And a chain wrapped around their right forearm.

‘A worm-hunter,’ Dandolo breathed out.

Tenacity’s grin widened. ‘He is. Futility! You are late!’

_Futility?_ Dandolo raised his eyebrows, and watched how the two men clasped each other’s neck and brought their foreheads together, Tenacity half-closing his eyes.

Dandolo looked away. It was intended not for him.

‘And you are a sandsailor,’ Futility said, and Dandolo looked at them again. Futility and Tenacity still stood close, holding hands loosely.

Dandolo nodded. It was rather obvious.

‘Leaving?’

‘Yes. We have a schedule, hunters.’

Futility smiled and nodded. ‘Fly in the Shadow, merchant.’

‘And you, too.’

***

They rearranged the pilots and cargo due to the loss of three sails, and Nameless was to ride with Dandolo. He liked having a companion again, even though Nameless was very different from Anton.

On leaving Green Hope he saw Tenacity’s ‘ride’: a worm-hunting truck, an armoured house on tracks, capable of providing seasons of autonomous living. It hadn’t looked like Tenacity was a worm-hunter himself. And it was not only the lack of the chain—a symbol as much as a tool of worm-hunters, but it was his strong Auroran accent that spoke of little time spent among other languages. Worm-hunters didn’t need hounds, to Dandolo’s knowledge. Perhaps he was a mole-hunter, then? It was not Dandolo’s place to ask questions, though he hoped he might see those two again, get to know them better. Maybe ride with them when his need for the plains called.

Nameless was quiet during the ride, but the very knowledge that he wasn’t alone helped Dandolo restrain himself and not give in to the call of the wind and drive away from the caravan. He had someone to look after.

Selfish, perhaps.

They stopped for the night, and when Dandolo left his vessel, he suggested to Nameless, ‘You should rest.’

‘Want to help.’ They got out of the gondola.

Sofi and Vesna, another pilot, were cursing under their breath trying to start a small stove. Dandolo would have admonished them for the language but he understood the frustration well.

‘I’m breaking this piece of shit when we get home!’ Sofi exclaimed at last and pushed herself away from the innocent-looking piece of portable technology.

‘May I?’ Nameless asked. Their shoulders were tense.

Sofi looked at Dandolo. He didn’t like her wariness, Nameless deserved a little trust, but he could understand it, too. He nodded.

Nameless crouched in front of the stove, felt up the side. Then a spark flittered over the stove, and then the inner generator kicked in. They pulled back, a small lightning running between their fingers, there—and gone.

Dandolo couldn’t look away. It was like a tiny star.

Sofi and Vesna looked astonished. ‘Hey, well done!’

Nameless stepped away and ducked their head, but in the light of many lamps they had lit up their face flushed.

‘ _Rico_ , your time to make chocolate!’ Vesna called.

He waved them off to fetch food as he set about the task. He put a pot on the stove, filled it with water, prepared the pot of powder.

‘Why _“rico”_? What does it mean?’ Nameless asked. They sat down beside Dandolo, knees pulled to their chest. They seemed more relaxed now that they had used their power even in a small way.

‘It means someone who gave their all to our… community,’ Dandolo explained as best he could without getting into details.

‘You gave all?’

He busied himself with checking the stove, forcing himself to breathe. To stop his hands from shaking. ‘I took lives for that.’

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nameless nod and make a few strange clicking noises. ‘Family. Protect them. Do everything.’ With their haircut renewed, half of it cropped close with a fringe on the top, Dandolo noticed that their hair was mostly white. Even though they couldn’t have been older than him. Possibly much younger.

Dandolo couldn’t agree. Sometimes you had to cut off certain members of your ‘family’, and he would have gladly kicked certain people out of Noctis—but then, wouldn’t that make him a hypocrite? Noctis survived because they held onto each other, helped each other, protected each other. Noctis was not a place—it was the people, and who was he to judge who deserved a place there and who didn’t?

He had no answers for any of that.

‘The sounds you have just made,’ he noted. ‘Is that Binary?’

Nameless’s face lit up. It didn’t smooth out like Anton’s—and Dandolo really should have stopped thinking about Anton and comparing Nameless to him—but something _alive_ appeared in their face. Dandolo liked watching people’s faces. ‘A version of. Speak it?’

Dandolo shook his head. ‘Only a little.’

‘Teach you?’

He smiled. ‘I would be honoured to be your student.’

Their face changed immediately and dramatically, and Dandolo thought that somehow his answer was wrong. ‘I’m sorry, did I say something…’ He didn’t know how to fix it.

Bubbling gained his attention, and he hastened to turn down the heat, then counted the spoons of powder, dumping them into the pot and stirring.

‘Moles. To the west,’ Nameless said quietly.

Dandolo knew that it was not what had made their face fall, but he wouldn’t call their attention to it. ‘Yes. I feel them. They are traversing with a queen, so if we keep away, there won’t be any harm done to anyone.’

Nameless shifted, sandals scraping on the rock. ‘You feel?’

He turned the stove off, allowing the chocolate to thicken and settle. ‘My people call someone like that a sandsinger. Living beings, change in the weather, where I am… I feel all that. Some say sandsingers can control the weather, but no matter how I tried, I can say definitely that I can’t.’

‘A Technomancer?’

The wonder in Nameless’s voice made Dandolo look at them. He wondered how Nameless must have felt now, among strangers again. He shook his head. ‘No, I’m not. At least… It’s something passive. I can control it to a degree, but it’s not like your gift.’

‘Gift.’ They frowned. Then reached over, palm up.

Dandolo hesitated. ‘Are you all right? After using your powers.’

Nameless nodded, and almost retracted their hand, but Dandolo hadn’t hesitated because he didn’t want to. He was simply worried. He covered their hand with his—and laughed from a tiny tickling buzz. ‘Is your touch always this amazing?’

‘Amazing?’ They tilted their head to the shoulder.

Dandolo closed his fingers loosely over their hand. ‘Yes. It is. _You_ are amazing.’

‘Crazy.’ They took away their hand and turned to look at the stove.

‘You are not,’ Dandolo told them gently. ‘Want chocolate? Sweetened? Peppered? It’s good for warmth.’

They nodded. He filled a mug for them.

As the caravan settled for the night sleep, Dandolo arranged Nameless on the ground. They assured him they were fine with that, but at least he convinced them to sleep on the carpet. Nights were icy cold. He covered them with a pile of blankets, then went back to the stove, putting food away, running it on low heat.

Sofi wrapped a blanket over his shoulders and her own. He leaned on her side.

‘You are doing much better, _rico_. I’m proud.’

He rubbed his face, hoping the half-darkness only illuminated by a lamp sitting by the stove would hide the colour on his face. ‘I’m glad, _sorela_.’

‘Don’t be. You are going to bring them to Noctis, aren’t you.’

He shrugged, trying to catch the blanket that his gesture dislodged. ‘They have nowhere else to go. If they agree… And anyway, they must have been to Noctis already.’ It was a weak defence: Dandolo was sure they hadn’t been.

‘No, _rico_. Marcello left Noctis without owning a _maudite_ Technomancer!’

Dandolo winced. ‘Please don’t raise your voice. Especially not around them.’

She sighed and slumped against him. He didn’t like that sigh—a long, long-suffering one. ‘The last time—’

‘The _last_ time,’ he hastened to say, ‘I should have trusted more. Maybe then he wouldn’t have…’ He frowned and pressed a hand to his left shoulder. It felt heavy. He wanted to forget.

‘Dandolo. He made his choice. You made yours.’ Her hair brushes his neck. Tickling.

‘And we both have to live with it,’ he finished and closed his eyes tight.

She covered his hand on his shoulder. ‘You know the rules.’

‘I’ll vouch for them with my place in the Council. I have to do it right this time, Sofia. They are…’ He shook his head. ‘Go to sleep.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m fine.’

She got up, leaving the blanket. ‘You are a shit liar, Dandolo.’

***

Nameless did agree to learn piloting after all, and Sofi offered her expertise. Dandolo hoped it would be an opportunity for them to learn each other better and for Sofi to change her mind about Nameless’s fate. If Dandolo were to bring them to Noctis, he needed all the support he could have. Besides being a member of the Council, Sofi was a respected pilot...

He really was trying to do what he had nearly done with Anton.

The letters were still on him, all the time. He didn’t need to read them again, but he liked the feeling of them.

Nameless’s abilities were a gift, indeed: they had discovered they could recharge the sails in case of power shortage or, the other way around, replenish their own energy from the solar generators. They were quick to learn, quiet, shying away from physical contact, but Dandolo’s pilots were understanding of that.

When they were just a day’s trip away from Noctis, with a feeling of the storm season forming up in the back of Dandolo’s mind, heo was watching Nameless manoeuvre the sandsail into the cave. Nameless had more affinity to piloting the sturdy sym-sail, and seemed to do better in a company rather than alone—a fact that Sofi had pointed out already, too.

‘You know, _rico_ ,’ she said as she advanced on him with a complex expression on her face—like she was ready to strangle him, but hadn’t decided yet how much pressure to put on his throat. ‘It has occurred to me that you have set up these lessons to make me get closer with them.’

He smiled his most innocent smile. ‘It should occur to you that you offered mentorship yourself.’

‘But you were the one to put the idea of Nameless learning to pilot into everyone’s head.’

Dandolo shrugged. It was difficult to keep his smile innocent. ‘It was reasonable.’

She sighed and sat down beside him, snatching a piece of orange from his hands. ‘Aya would be happy with them.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You want to...’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Only if they agree. And I’d be happy to train them further, and they obviously feel bad alone and...’

Now he couldn’t really stop a grin. She smacked him on the shoulder. ‘Oh, come on! You did it on purpose!’

‘I’m sure little Tandje would be happy to have an older sibling.’

‘Are you sure _“paon”_ is an appropriate name for you? _“Corvo”_ seems more like you. Very cunning.’

‘Oh, but changing a name would be such a hassle, _sorela_.’

***

He felt the closeness of home like moles felt the presence of water. The last hours he might have even broken off the formation a few times, getting ahead of others. He wanted... He wanted home.

He wanted to show his home to Nameless.

He checked the schedule of entry points even though he knew it by heart, and led his small caravan towards the branch of the canyon that would—

_‘Paon.’_

Dandolo tensed, hearing that voice on his caravan’s frequency, but he managed to stifle all his emotions before he replied, ‘Guardian Fran. Are you here to stop us for a check?’ He stretched his senses as far as he could, and, there, behind the nearest hillock. Caution well-advised for a flock of Palatial guards patrolling the premises.

‘I have no time for this, D,’ they said, and their voice was tense. ‘Marcello is here. Two days already.’

The radio carried a few exclamations from his caravan.

‘And?’

‘He’s been speaking about you. That you threatened him. Did you?’

His shoulder was tingling. His home was so close. ‘I did. Because—’

‘Because of myself,’ another voice cut in. Nameless.

A pause on the radio. ‘Identify yourself,’ Fran demanded.

‘I have no name,’ they said, eloquent like Dandolo hadn’t heard them before. Full of pride. ‘And I have my reasons for that. Merchant Marcello was my master and opposed to my buying myself out, which I assume is a crime among your people. _Rico_ Dandolo and his people intervened.’

There was astonished silence. ‘There are witnesses, Fran,’ Dandolo said. ‘And not only among ours. I’m vouching for Nameless, Fran. You should let us in.’

‘Namele— D, Marcello demands a hearing. Full Council. With no Prince right now...’

He sighed. Of course Marcello would do something like that.

‘He also says that the sandsails you sold to him were somehow... sabotaged.’

Sofi snorted, and Dandolo smiled.

‘Guardian... Fran, is it?’ Nameless said again. Dandolo was getting an idea from which Guild they had come from. ‘I would very much like to meet merchant Marcello, too. Would you accept me into your city?’

Silence. Dandolo held his breath and slowed down the sandsail.

‘Yes, Nameless. Welcome to Noctis.’

‘Shadow protect you, Guardian.’

They reached Noctis without seeing Fran’s group, even though Dandolo very much liked to talk to them. He would do it later.

If there would be later.

They arrived to the Docks just fine, and the dockworkers eyed him warily when he got out of his vessel. The guardian on Dock duty strode right to him. ‘ _Rico_ Dandolo?’

He nodded. They looked over his shoulder—at Nameless, he knew. Then back at him. ‘Guardian Fran said you are vouching for them. They vouched for the stranger, too.’

Dandolo raised his eyebrows. He didn’t expect that from Fran, and Fran hadn’t said anything.

Sofi strode closer. ‘I am, too, as the whole caravan.’

‘I can vouch with my seat in the Council,’ Dandolo added.

The guard noted something on their datapad but stilled at these words. ‘You’d need it, _rico_. Marcello has threatened the Council with splitting. Reverend Artair is... not amused.’

‘No doubt,’ Sofi murmured. She gave the guard their cargo manifesto.

Nameless walked closer. ‘May I go to the Council, too?’

Dandolo softened. ‘You don’t have to look at him ever again, Nameless.’

‘I need to. I want to. Could you please make sure that the whole Council is there?’

Dandolo nodded. He didn’t know what Nameless wanted that for, but he was ready to intervene.

Nameless turned to the pilot. ‘ _Volator_ Sofia! I wish to go to the Council immediately, but... I need some things first. Could you help me?’

‘Sure, _matelot_.’ She gave the datapad over to Vesna. They walked away, conversing quietly.

Dandolo dusted off his tunic, but not much. He had just returned from a lengthy journey, and they were already calling him into the Council. He would stand with them as he was.

There was a pretty crowd on the steps leading to the Palace.

Dandolo was recalling several choicest insults from Anton’s arsenal to use. Of course it was petty and childish—but it would feel so satisfying.

He started up the stairs, sand drifting from him. He didn’t even plan on touching his flask, allowing the roughness of travel to stay in his voice. The crowd parted before him and a distinct murmur rose up. He went up the stairs to the first landing—like before.

Marcello turned to him after one of his cronies nodded. They were dressed in gaudy colours, again. Perhaps Sofi was right, and Dandolo’s name should have been different. This display was unnecessary right now.

‘Oh, there he is, that—’

‘Marcello.’ It was a quiet sound, but it felt like it carried over the whole of Noctis.

Dandolo ignored Marcello and bowed slightly to Artair. ‘Reverend merchant. The guard at the Docks said the Council has been called. I have come as fast as I could.’

‘So you are.’ He nodded. He looked... irritated, and he was leaning on a cane Dandolo had never seen him with before. it was a magnificent thing, bone by the looks of it. ‘ _Selega_ here demanded a meeting to decide your fate, Dandolo. He was going at length that you had sabotaged his work.’

Dandolo raised his eyebrows. ‘Had I?’ He gave Marcello a deliberate long look. ‘I see him and his companions are fine.’

‘Did you meet in Green Hope?’

‘Briefly. It had turned out he told the overseer of the farm that my caravan wouldn’t be coming, but I don’t remember ever telling anyone that. My route had been approved before winter season.’

Artair didn’t change in the face, but another voice said, ‘ _That_ sounds like disruption of a fellow merchant’s work.’

Dandolo looked at Equanimity. Of course she would be here, with her two colleagues. Again, smoking without a care in the world. He took in a deep breath and smiled slightly at the familiar scent of her cigars.

He felt like history was repeating itself, even though he knew it didn’t—but perhaps this was the sandstorm born from the wind his own trial had stirred seasons ago.

‘I think,’ another voice sounded from below, ‘that Marcello has a problem with _me_. _I_ certainly have a problem with _him_.’

Dandolo moved aside, joining Equanimity by the banisters.

And he nearly missed a step when he looked at Nameless.

They were wearing Technomantic gear—made from various pieces both of Auroran and Abundancean origin: a short black jacket without sleeves, a full circlet, glistening in the low light, in their short white hair. That wiring-bodyglove under the jacket, which their scars reminded Dandolo of. A spiked pauldron on their right shoulder. Technomantic gloves. They didn’t have a staff, Dandolo supposed there was something special about it, that it couldn’t be simply bought in a haste. He would bring them any materials they needed for it—but then he remembered that with those two remaining sandsails they could afford that, too. He still wanted to give them it as a gift.

It would have to wait, however.

‘Please state your name,’ Artair said gently. Unlike many Councillors, he didn’t seem at all surprised by appearance of a Technomancer in Noctis.

Which was rather fitting.

The tattoos on Artair’s temple were designed not to conceal, but to highlight the notches.

Nameless stopped on the landing. Dandolo wondered whether he had, too, looked like that. Alone. Only he had had his hands bloody. He remembered it well. The weight and the sweet scent.

‘I have no name, Noctis,’ they said in a very clear, perfectly polished voice. It seemed they were used to, or trained for, oratorical work. ‘I used to have one, but for reasons that do not concern anyone but myself I had lost my right to it. _Rico_ Dandolo,’—Dandolo could swear he heard emphasis on ‘rico’,—‘called me Nameless, and that suits me just fine.’

Artair nodded. ‘Since you are already here, I assume you have been vouched for.’ Artair’s eyes stopped on Dandolo, but he stayed unmoving. It was rather obvious. ‘What do you have against Marcello? Noctis is listening.’

Nameless’s gaze slid over to Marcello. Not a muscle twitched in their face—but when Dandolo looked at Marcello, the merchant was very pale and leaning back, as though he wanted to get away from that neutral gaze. But he couldn’t, because the Council was behind him.

Dandolo leaned on the banister. he wished he had a jug of something sweet and hard at hand.

‘Merchant Marcello purchased me off of bandits in a town I know not the name of,’ Nameless said, their gaze never leaving Marcello. ‘I had been their property for a some time, but I cannot say how long with certainty. Merchant Marcello had not allowed me to change clothes and had not removed a heavy metal collar of my neck. He would only allow me just enough liquid and provision to keep me alive and having a charge, but not enough to build it up—I assume that was because he saw me as a threat.’

Dandolo couldn’t look at Marcello. He thought that if he did, he would stride to him and strangle the bastard. He startled when a hand squeezed his left shoulder, and looked at Equanimity. ‘Easy, boy.’

He bit his lip. It was not his battle—but if Nameless needed him, he would be ready to fight alongside them.

‘Go on, Nameless,’ Artair prompted them.

‘Then at Green Hope I desired to buy myself out.’

‘Through the—’ Marcello started, but Nameless narrowed their eyes, and no other words from Marcello followed.

‘With sufficient enough sum?’ Artair asked in a perfectly neutral voice. They were such a match, Nameless with his neutral expression and the old merchant with a similar non-expression on his face. Their voices fitting well. Like in a play.

‘Quite sufficient. Merchant Marcello thought it an... obstruction to his rights over me.’

Artair glanced briefly at Dandolo. Dandolo hoped his face was not showing anything, not even a tiniest sand grain of the crimson darkness raging within him. He preferred that darkness—because otherwise he thought he would be sick or snap Marcello’s neck, guards or not, Council or not.

He remembered the feeling of Faradeas’s blood on his hands. He could do this again, _would_ do this again without a moment’s hesitation.

‘He threatened me and _volator_ Sofia and _rico_ Dandolo,’ Nameless continued without mercy. ‘If you wish for witnesses, you could contact Green Hope. There were several, including the farm overseer, Lieutenant Irenka Major.’

Artair looked like he was cast from stone. He stepped forward, looked back—all over the stairs. ‘The case appears clear to me. What say you, Noctis?’

Equanimity put out her cigar. Dandolo suddenly realised that Lieutenant Major had looked the same. It was a very neat trick to gain attention, he should take that into his arsenal. Smoking and putting it out. ‘I think we all—or at least, those that are old enough—’ she pointedly _didn’t_ look at Marcello, ‘remember what happened several seasons ago. The case is clear to me also.’

Marcello went crimson. ‘You Auroran bitch, you—’

She raised her eyebrows.

Noctis turned quiet.

Even Marcello’s retinue stepped back, away from him. To insult, to _threaten_ a Witness...

Equanimity turned away from him, looked at Nameless, stepped to them, smiling. Then bowed slightly. ‘By the Shadow, it’s good to hear someone with my accent, kid. No offence to the reverend Artair, but he’s a Noctian through-and-through. Marcello owes you a compensation for the damage done, you know.’

Nameless smiled, too, a hesitant thing that made them look younger. ‘I think I will need help calculating it. Thankfully, it seems I have acquired friends who can do it.’

The vote was mostly a formality after that, even though some of Marcello’s friends tried to put up resistance.

When the Council broke up and started filing out, Dandolo squeezed through the throng behind Marcello, and leaned over him. ‘I can’t stop you from acquiring slaves,’ he whispered right into his ear, ‘ _yet_. But if you mistreat any of them—I will know and come after you. If you bother Nameless again, I will know and come after you.’

Marcello was rigid. Dandolo wasn’t holding him in any way, only leaning to his ear—there was a murmuring crowd around them, after all, and he wanted to be heard.

‘Are you threatening me? Think my father would protect you, _sciavo_?’

It was, of course, a deliberate provocation.

Dandolo smiled, even though Marcello couldn’t see it—but it carried over into his voice. ‘I think we both know that I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself—and my people. Good day, merchant.’


	10. Chapter 10

Rumours were abound in Noctis for a whole week, especially after Nameless moved in to Aya and Sofi’s farm. It was a reasonable move, given that Nameless continued their pilot training.

They had received one of the sandsails—without cargo—as a compensation for the damage done to them during their stay with Marcello—and restriction that Marcello to never talk to them.

Dandolo was working on his own affairs: he had to reschedule things with Sofi now that she decided to quit piloting, and with three of his sandsails gone. He was happy for that, however. He was dreading the moment when he would be out of things to do—and the storm season was approaching. He would be stranded in Noctis, and even though the prospect of the Carnival pleased him, at the same time it fuelled his dread.

Maybe to go into the Labyrinth again would be a better idea.

When he couldn’t work with papers anymore, he went scaling the cliffs—anything to keep himself from getting into bottle again.

Two weeks after the Council meeting he received an invitation to Artair. He hadn’t transferred his spices to the reverend yet, and perhaps the merchant wanted them now.

Dandolo picked the bags—they were standing, aromatic, in his study—and went over to the merchant’s house. It wasn’t far away from the Palace, though with no Prince and the cessation of mercantile activites close to the storm season Dandolo doubted the Palace required presence of Council members. The house wasn’t much bigger than his own—why waste space? But stairs were rather steep. It seemed the cane was not only for show.

A servant took the bags from him for weighing and ushered him into a room behind a curtain of beds that rustled as he went through them.

He didn’t expect to find Nameless there, reclining on a cushion.

Nameless looked up and smiled, even though there was a sadness about them. They were wearing a Noctian tunic, in faded red, but one hand was gloved. They didn’t seem surprised. They stood up. ‘ _Rico_ Dandolo. Thank you for coming.’

Dandolo nodded, then both of them sat down on the cushions. ‘I thought Artair needed me.’

‘He did, but it was mostly mine request to see you,’ they said somewhat timidly.

Dandolo liked how they were speaking in full sentences now, their speech melodious like that of a native Noctian, even though with a somewhat different accent.

‘I wanted to see you, too,’ Dandolo admitted. ‘To ask you to be my pilot. And to start our lessons in Binary. But that is of no haste. How are you doing these days?’

‘Sofi and Aya are very kind. And I like little Tandje.’ They made a face. ‘Though she’s loud.’

Dandolo felt a hot rush of guilt. He hadn’t yet visited them. ‘I can imagine. But you haven’t answered my question.’

They smiled apologetically. ‘You noticed. You’d made a fine Technomancer among my kindred.’ Their face fell. ‘Better than I was.’ They pulled at a wire in their glove. ‘I wanted to thank you.’

‘You needn’t to. I should ask your forgiveness for what Marcello did to you.’

They looked up in surprise. ‘But it wasn’t your fault!’

‘He’s a merchant,’ he said firmly. ‘And as much as I’d like to kick him out, he’s a part of Noctis. We all are complicit. More so because he is a Noctian born and raised.’

They were still watching him in astonishment, and something changed then in their face. Dandolo noticed, as they turned their head, that their neck was bandaged. He suspected it was a new tattoo, probably made by Equanimity herself if he knew her well.

From a collar to something that marked him in a different way. Dandolo could see sense in that.

He waited.

‘There was someone… I failed him, even though I should have been his mentor. I failed him terribly, and I was helped to realise that… But it was too late.’

‘You are a Technomancer, but you are human before that,’ Dandolo said gently. ‘And humans make mistakes.’ He shook his head. Spirits knew he’d made plenty. ‘I’m sorry I can’t say anything more comforting or tell you that you were right or wrong.’

Nameless shook their head. ‘No. No, it’s enough that you listened to my little confession. And I want to trust you with one more thing. As I said during the hearing, I don’t have a claim to it anymore, but I’d like you to keep it. My name was Integrity.’

Dandolo nodded. His heart was beating fast. ‘I will keep it, kindred. Thank you for trusting me.’

Nameless smiled, relief making them look younger. ‘If Sofi sees me fit, I will be happy to join your caravan in summer or whenever you need me. Aside from that, you have my help. _Fradelo_.’

The curtain behind Dandolo whispered, and he turned, then got up as Artair walked in. ‘Am I intruding, children?’ He made a few clicking noises, and Nameless’s face lit up, a blush rising to their cheeks as they answered.

Dandolo laughed. ‘You should teach me this.’

‘I shall,’ Nameless said. They got up, nodded to Dandolo, bowed to Artair, and excused themselves.

‘Sit down, Dandolo,’ Artair said.

Dandolo did, watched as the reverend merchant lowered himself on the cushions, folding his legs under himself not without difficulty. ‘They speak highly of you,’ Artair noted. ‘I received the spices. Thank you. The payment will be sent to you.’

Dandolo shook his head. ‘It was an honour, but next time do place orders before—’

‘Before you get drunk out of your mind?’ Artair finished.

Dandolo got up, his face heated. ‘If you called me here just to lecture me—’

‘Sit down, _tamaiti_. As you see, I have no aptitude for your climbing. I didn’t call you here to scold you, even if I should, perhaps. No because I’m older. Age only means that I’ve had more opportunities to do bad things. But I’ve been where you are, and that way leads nowhere.’

Dandolo shook his head, once. He kept his hands on his laps and rubbed his fingers against each other, half-expecting to feel the stickiness of blood. ‘ _Kokka_ , I’m a murderer, and people died because of me. _Our_ people. I’m already in that nowhere.’

‘Our friend Nameless would disagree—and believe me, they are a formidable opponent in a battle of thought and word.’

He smiled weakly. ‘I can imagine.’ Then something occurred to him. ‘Are you employing them?’

‘If you don’t take them for the whole of next summer and winter, I wish them to fly with my caravans, as a pilot and protector. But for now they are studying, working at Aya and Sofia’s farm, and being my secretary. They will know our ways.’

Dandolo glanced briefly at Artair’s temples, and the merchant nodded. ‘Yes. And this, too. They haven’t finished their training.’

‘And you will bring them into the Council.’

‘By the end of storms, spirits willing. And I’m doing it for you, too.’

He raised his brows. ‘I’m glad that you are watching over them, _kokka_ —’

‘No, you don’t understand. I want them to work with you—when you become the _Doxe_.’

That was not what he expected, not this directly. He stared at Artair, but the old owl didn’t seem to be disturbed by his stare. Dandolo could only ask, ‘Why?’

Artair didn’t seem to ponder on this question long. As though this discussion had been scripted and rehearsed many times. ‘Because you are young and determined. You see our flaws and you are not afraid to address them or try to change things.’

Dandolo looked away. ‘I always wondered why _you_ wouldn’t become the Prince.’

‘The Prince needs more than just being a good merchant, _paon_. You have a certain ruthlessness when it comes to injustice—and compassion for the victims of it. You are willing to learn other ways.’

He opened his mouth, but Artair held up his hand. ‘Let me finish, _tamaiti_. We are settling in our ways. There are several generations of old merchants who are content to just send the younglings away with wares and collect profits, not getting into how those profits have been acquired. They have forgotten that Noctis is not about that. We are connecting people of Mars—and we are the sanctuary for those who need it, those who can’t find a place anywhere else.’

‘The first travelling merchants were refugees,’ Dandolo said quietly. ‘I remember, _kokka_.’

He smiled thinly. ‘At least _someone_ does.’ The merchant leaned back on the cushion, braids falling on their back. ‘Have you heard what they are talking about on the streets now? _“Noctis first”!_ We are not like the _Fraglie_. We can’t close the gates and say that you are allowed to enter because you have marketable skills, but that one has to die because they don’t have those skills.’

‘Isn’t it what we are doing with the vouching system?’ Dandolo asked quietly.

Artair smiled. ‘You understand that, don’t you. That Ophirian boy you almost brought here—’

‘You _know_?’

He smiled again. ‘I have spies—something the Prince needs, too. You wanted to bring him here, didn’t you. No matter legal consequences.’

Dandolo dropped his gaze to his lap. ‘He was… He _is_. A brother. He needed me.’

‘And you took him in.’

‘And then cast him out,’ Dandolo added. He couldn’t bring his voice louder than a whisper.

‘Perhaps too hastily,’ Artair said. There was no judgement in his voice. ‘That wind is yet to start a storm one day, and you will weather it out or be swept away by it. But would you have fought for him? Killed for him? Would you have stopped Faradeas again? The Morning Glory denizens?’

Dandolo raised his gaze. ‘Without hesitation,’ he said, words heavy in his mouth, but true.

Artair nodded. ‘Ruthlessness, as I said. They forget that, besides the Golden Gates, the South Gate, all others, there are also the Red Gates and what lies beyond them.’ Artair fell silent. He had one Noctian Triangle on the left earlobe. He narrowed his eyes. ‘What did you see there, Dandolo?’

He opened his mouth. Then closed, rubbing his left shoulder. ‘I can’t say.’

Artair smiled, the warmth of it reaching his eyes. ‘If you ask someone about that and they start describing it, they haven’t been there. There are simply no words to describe what is there. Call me a superstitious old bird, but you’ve been marked—for something more than just traversing the plains. Nameless says you consider their suffering your responsibility.’

Dandolo dropped his gaze again. He felt bared. ‘One is personally responsible for the suffering of others.’

‘Is that so? What about the Council? The Prince? Noctis? Can you say that they are responsible? Can you say that they should go and wage war on—’

‘No wars,’ he interrupted, closing his fingers. ‘Wars are...’ He took a breath, let it out. ‘Maybe the Prince of Noctis can’t go saving someone abused by a Guild, because repercussions for Noctis would be grave. But Dandolo the merchant? He can try.’

The cushion rustled when Artair shifted. ‘You have your own ways, things that might be useful to the Prince. Your connections, your network of correspondence. Ian Mancer is a clever man, a scholar, and I am greatly enjoying our letters thanks to you, but I know he’s not the only one. You have the heart for connecting with people. Of course, I cannot force you to become the Doxe…’ Dandolo snorted, and Artair smiled. ‘I _can_ force you, but I wouldn’t. I ask you to think on it.’

‘I have nearly lost my place in the Council,’ Dandolo reminded him.

Artair waved. ‘Not because you have no supporters or admirers. We are getting weaker, Dandolo, because we start being afraid of change.’ He didn’t get to finish his speech because there was a commotion outside, and then hasty steps, and Artair’s servant peered inside, ‘I am sorry, reverend, I tried to stop her—’

‘Move!’ Sofi shouldered her way inside, nodded briefly to Artair, then looked at Dandolo. ‘ _Rico_ , you must go with me. It’s Fran and— Just go.’

He glanced at Artair. The merchant was smiling a cryptic smile. ‘Fly in the Shadow, _rico_.’

_‘Kokka.’_

The run was so fast that Dandolo, even though he was taller than Sofi, barely kept up. He thought they would rush to the Palace, but she led him past it and to the Golden Gates. They had to push through a throng, then she walked him through the side door to the Gates area proper.

A whole sextet of the Palatial guards were gathered here, three on the ground, three on the walkway over the Gate area. Five rifles primed and steady. And the sixth figure with a spear in one hand, the other on the rider’s horn. Ready to call for reinforcements.

Dandolo looked past them—and felt like a gush of wind swept over him.

‘That’s the famous Noctian hospitality?’ Tenacity murmured, but it was difficult to hear him. He was swaying on his feet, the jacket thrown over his shoulders. A huge red patch spreading on bandages over his middle.

‘How do you know to come here?’ Fran hissed.

‘The truck just outside kinda answers the question, doesn’t it,’ Tenacity said, licked his lips. He was very pale. ‘Guess I’ll just die here...’ He swayed even more, and Dandolo rushed over to catch him. He was heavy and bleeding.

Fran didn’t relax. ‘You know them?’

‘Yes, but what different does it make? He’s bleeding out! _Medego_!’

***

They carried him to the guardhouse first to stabilise him, then transported him to the _medego_ in the city proper. Nameless arrived shortly after, offering their Technomancy should Tenacity’s heart give up...

Dandolo couldn’t understand anything. His hands were wet, and Sofi had to walk him to the basin and wash them.

Questions were swarming his mind like a pack of thirsty moles. What had happened? Where were the hounds? Where was Futility? Something must have happened to the worm-hunter.

Dandolo got a grip on himself after drinking a full flask of water, and asked to be let into the ward. Tenacity lay there on the cot, pale, but breathing steadily, new bandages wrapped around him. Dandolo watched, expecting a red patch appear any moment, but hours trickled by and it didn’t.

Tenacity stirred, sluggish, tried to lift his hand, but Dandolo shushed him. ‘Don’t move.’ He tried to remember what the _medeghi_ said. ‘You lost a lot of blood.’

Grey-blue eyes were almost colourless, and Dandolo saw the exact moment when the hunter remembered where he was. ‘Didn’t dream up your city after all,’ he murmured. His lips were drained of colour.

Dandolo sat closer on a stool. ‘Yes. You made it here. You’ll be cared for, don’t worry.’

‘The truck?’

Dandolo wanted to kick himself for not thinking about it before. ‘I’ll see to it that it’s brought into the city.’

Tenacity closed his eyes, and Dandolo thought he had fallen asleep again, but then a quiet voice said, ‘Not asking what happened? What if I brought a tail?’

‘There are guard patrols around the city. It’s difficult to go past them without being noticed.’ He couldn’t allow his own confusion to show, his worry to take over him. Tenacity needed help.

‘Who’s paying for me?’

He stared at the hunter. ‘The city. We wouldn’t turn you down just because you are not from here.’

‘That guard... tried.’

‘Suspicion is in their job description.’

Silence.

‘Moles,’ Tenacity murmured. Dandolo leaned closer, thinking he was delirious. Grey-blue eyes looked at him, wet. ‘Fucking moles, merchant. All his life, hunting, capturing drilling worms—and to be torn by fucking moles.’ Tenacity closed his eyes and turned his face into the pillow. ‘Told me to go to you if something like that happened. Didn’t know would come alone...’

Dandolo’s touched his hair gently. He suspected the hounds had been torn apart, too. ‘It’s all right to cry.’

***

The hunter recovered quickly—physically. When the _medeghi_ allowed it, Dandolo moved him to his house, even though Tenacity threatened to sabotage his recovery by walking too much.

The first time he walked to the truck, his hands started shaking and he turned away. Dandolo let him be, but when he didn’t return in three hours, he started looking. Something—and instinct or a kinship—told him to search the bars. He did find the now familiar red head in The Prince’s Drums.

Dandolo realised with surprise that enough time had passed since his last venture through the bars of Noctis that he hadn’t recognised the bartender. Tenacity was slouched over the counter, nursing a cup. By the looks of him—his hair falling into his eyes, the gash under his sternum visible under his open jacket, his fingers with chipped nails drumming without rhythm—it wasn’t his first or even second cup.

‘Tenacity. We should go. You’ve had enough.’ He put a hand on Tenacity’s shoulder, but Tenacity shrugged it off.

‘Fuck off.’

Dandolo sighed. ‘I don’t want to use force, but I will if need be.’

‘Oh you will, will you,’ Tenacity grumbled somewhat nonsensically. Then sighed, twirling the cup in his hand. ‘Fine. But I can’t stand up. This thing is strong.’

‘Ostrich Blood,’ the bartender supplied, though Dandolo already could see the thick red liquid sloshing on the bottom of the cup and the characteristic smell of spiced blood. He sighed. Non-Noctians shouldn’t be allowed to touch it before being instructed about its effects.

He glanced at the bartender, but they raised their hands. ‘I told him. He asked for it anyway.’

Dandolo sighed again and wrapped an arm around Tenacity’s waist, careful not to press on the fresh scabbing. ‘Come on, hunter. I’ll help you.’

It wasn’t a fast journey. The night was rather cold, even though winter was drawing to a close, and Dandolo’s skin was prickling with the closeness of storms. Perhaps a week more, and they will start.

Tenacity was a considerable weight, but nothing Dandolo couldn’t handle, and the hunter did try to help by dragging his legs. He was a warm, very warm weight, and Dandolo... didn’t mind. He caught Tenacity when he stumbled, and then helped him up the steps towards the house. It was warm inside, the walls retaining the daytime heat.

He helped Tenacity onto a settle, but when he pulled back, Tenacity did something with his legs, and Dandolo toppled right on him. His heart nearly stopped. ‘What are you doing?’ He scrambled to pull back, even though Tenacity tangled his fingers in his braids, but Dandolo twisted and looked down Tenacity’s body. He couldn’t tell in the low light of a lone lamp whether there was any blood under his ribs. So he simply felt around—nothing but dry and very hot skin.

Tenacity chuckled over him. ‘Impatient already?’

He rolled his eyes and then rolled off Tenacity carefully—which resulted in him tumbling ungracefully onto the floor.

He sat up to the accompaniment of Tenacity’s breathless laughter, then leaned with his back to the settle. Tenacity’s hand slid off the settle and captured one of his braids, rubbing it. Making a soft rustling sound. Tenacity was radiating so much heat Dandolo could feel it even sitting on the floor, his head by Tenacity’s side.

‘Wanna have fun?’ Tenacity rasped. He had a low voice, his words a mix of drawled-out and short sounds, like he couldn’t decide whether to be obtuse or to be business-like.

Dandolo looked through the beaded curtain, its cascading lines turning the distant blue lights of the Palace into a strangle constellation. He hadn’t changed it to a proper door since returning home. He couldn’t sleep at nights anyway. ‘You are drunk,’ he pointed out. He closed his fingers over Tenacity’s hand on his braid. It was warm, calloused, heavy.

‘Nah. Takes lot more than two cups of whatever it was to knock me out.’

Dandolo smiled, even though Tenacity couldn’t see it. ‘It’s called Ostrich Blood, don’t you remember?’

The hand in his hold twitched. ‘It’s not really ostrich blood, is it?’

He tilted his head up. The lights were playing in Tenacity’s eyes like salt-stars. Dandolo grinned. ‘Not telling you.’

And before Tenacity could find something witty to answer, he turned fully to the hunter and kissed him. Indeed, it was Ostrich Blood. Dandolo licked Tenacity’s lips, chasing the heavy sweetness. Behind Ostrich Blood there was a hint of bitterness from Tenacity’s cigars. Tenacity’s mouth was slack, a bow not unlike the cross piece of his strange rifle.

Tenacity closed his eyes, sucked in a breath, and then a smile twisted his lips. ‘That’s more like it.’ But there was something untrue to that smile. Dandolo wanted to touch his hair. Give him comfort. There was a small scar hidden in his ragged beard, under the right side of his mouth. Dandolo ran a thumb over it.

‘You don’t like men?’ Tenacity asked. He was trying to hide behind that smile, but Dandolo could see something was wrong.

He shook his head. ‘Men, women, neither, makes no difference to me. Are you sure?’

Tenacity frowned, turned his face to the side. A side of his jacket slid down to the floor, revealing stark-pale skin. ‘I’m sure.’

‘We could move to the bed,’ Dandolo offered.

‘Don’t think I can. And I’m pretty comfortable here.’ Tenacity grinned. He had a handsome grin.

Dandolo laughed. ‘You are halfway down to the floor.’

Tenacity looked at the floor. ‘If you didn’t remove the carpets since this morning, the floor would be fine by me.’

Dandolo smiled. ‘No. I didn’t remove them.’ His chest tightened suddenly, the world closing around them. Tenacity was very warm. Dandolo smeared a kiss over his cheek, his voice dropping to a whisper, ‘You are not allowed to strain yourself.’

Broad hands came round him, hitching up his tunic. ‘Don’t fucking care, merchant.’

Dandolo didn’t try to admonish him—but kissed him again instead.

***

It was still early when Dandolo sat up. They had ended up on the floor, and he had had enough presence of mind to drag a cover from the settle over them. Tenacity was a heater, but the room was rather cold.

He’d have to put up the proper door soon. Storms were going to be hard this year.

He pulled Tenacity’s jacket over his shoulders. It was wider than him, but shorter than he required.

The blue lights of the Palace were incessant, unblinking.

‘You have lots of scars, trader.’

Dandolo rolled his shoulders. ‘So do you.’

‘Is this… a Noctian tradition?’ A warm, warm hand touched his lower back where there was a mark from a cut he’d acquired in the Morning Glory raid. ‘To turn them into tattoos?’

‘Yes, though we wouldn’t call them tattoos. Pigment is rubbed into them. It’s to…’ He took in a breath slowly. ‘To remember.’

The hand pulled away from his back.

‘Trader?’ Tenacity’s voice called after a while, and it was quiet. ‘What happens when you die?’

He folded his legs under himself, watching the lights of the Palace. ‘Your body falls into elements. Your consciousness ceases to be. _You_ cease to be.’

One of the beads was chipped, and scattered the lights.

‘That’s… upsetting.’ Tenacity rustled behind him, hooked his chin over his right shoulder, pressed himself to his back and wrapped his arms around him.

Dandolo was grateful for the warmth. ‘Is it? I find it comforting,’ he admitted.

Tenacity huffed. There was no sweetness to his breath anymore. ‘You sound like the Technomancers.’

Dandolo tilted his head slightly. ‘Are you Auroran?’

‘The name kinda gives me away, doesn’t it.’

He smiled. Tenacity’s bear scratched his cheek. ‘ _Kinda_. Your accent, too, good hunter.’

‘Maybe I’ll drop the name.’

Dandolo squeezed his hand. It was calloused, but in a pattern different to Dandolo’s. ‘It suits you, however.’

‘What does _your_ name mean?’

He shrugged with his left shoulder. ‘ _One Who Gives_.’

He realised he shouldn’t have said that: he could _feel_ Tenacity’s smirk without even looking. And then Tenacity’s chuckle only confirmed it. ‘That, you are.’

Dandolo rolled his eyes, but it brought a smile to his lips, too. It was so easy to smile with Tenacity, to his small taunts, the bickering.

‘What is that thing on your left shoulder, One-Who-Gives? Doesn’t look like a tattoo either.’ Tenacity rubbed his cheek against his.

He leaned back on Tenacity’s chest. ‘A mark.’

‘It looks _wet_. But it isn’t.’

He closed his eyes. ‘It’s a claim.’

‘By whom?’

‘By Mars, perhaps. It’s not contagious.’

‘That’s not what I’m worried about.’

They fell silent for a while. It was the hour when the city was at its most quiet, even in the Caravanserail.

‘Stay until the storms,’ Dandolo asked. He felt, _knew_ that Tenacity was going to leave—knew with the surety like he felt storms. ‘I’ll show you the Carnival. Our dances, our music.’

‘I won’t. I never stay.’ Tenacity was rigid against him, and Dandolo was already mourning the loss of him. ‘Unless you get the truck off my hands.’

‘It can’t be sold or bought. You know the rules of the worm-hunters.’

‘But it can be given.’

‘Not until you die. He left it to you.’

Tenacity moved away, a growl in his voice, ‘What do I need it for?’

Dandolo turned to him, catching the jacket and pulling it close around himself. His eyesight was adapted to the low light conditions, and the lamp was still there, its red tint casting Tenacity in a strange silhouette. As though he was a vision Dandolo could have seen in the Labyrinth. ‘You might need it one day. It’s a gift. Don’t throw it away.’

‘Because I can’t,’ he grumbled. ‘At least… get the planetarium off my hands.’

Dandolo blinked. ‘Plane— You have a _planetarium_?’

Tenacity swept a stray strand of hair away from his face. ‘Yeah. Bloody heavy thing, but useful during the day. You know that tools don’t work up north properly.’

‘Yes, but a _planetarium_ —’ He closed his eyes. Ways of worm-hunters were as mysterious as his own to any outsider. ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll be… honoured.’

‘It’s a gift,’ Tenacity grumbled. ‘Don’t need any of your Serum for it.’

Dandolo smiled. ‘I want to give you something, too, though. Please accept it.’ He got up and, careful not to lose the jacket, went to his trunk. He rummaged in it until his fingers touched something very soft. He pulled it out carefully and had to get up to free it completely from other things in the trunk.

The crimson had faded with years, but he could feel the pattern still and knew it was visible. He carried it over to Tenacity, kneeling in front of him and folding the long piece of fabric in half. Then he threw it over Tenacity’s shoulders. ‘It will keep you warm during your nightly travels and can protect your face from dust.’

Tenacity ran a hand over it, smiled. ‘So soft.’

Dandolo looked him over, then pulled it off and folded it again, length-wise then broadwise, wrapped it several times around Tenacity’s waist and tied a knot. ‘ _Medeghi_ instructed to keep you warm here.’ He was avoiding Tenacity’s gaze.

‘Dandolo.’

He folded his hands on his lap.

‘Dandolo. I’m glad I met you.’

He looked up then. Tenacity’s eyes were unblinking like those of a hound. ‘I’m glad, too, hunter. If you can, return. If you can’t, don’t cry about it. Ride in the Shadow.’

‘Don’t want you to see me off.’ Tenacity leaned to him, and Dandolo shrugged off the jacket—but the hunter pressed a kiss to his lips first. It was not a chance lover’s kiss, but something deeper. Like the mark on his shoulder. A kiss of kinship.

Then Tenacity took the jacket. Dandolo got up and helped him put it on without dislodging the blanket-scarf. Filled a flask with water for him, gave him a wrapping of marzapan, chocolate powder, candied oranges.

Then Tenacity walked through the curtain of beads, and Dandolo turned his back to the stairs and the lights and the night.

***

When the storms came and the Carnival was about to light up, he went into the Labyrinth again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The planetarium's fate can be found in [Treasures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14936508).


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This begins Part 4.

 

‘Is it true?’

‘Depends on what you are asking about.’

‘Is it true that you decided to enlarge the Palace and ordered a drilling worm for that?’

Dandolo made a mark on the chart. ‘If you had attended the Council meeting, you would have known it’s true, Rio.’

She laughed over the link. ‘The Troupe has no patience for the Council gatherings. I know for sure that worm-hunting takes several seasons. What if they bring it home when you are outed? How did you get it through the Council anyway?’

‘If you _had_ been to the Council meeting,’ Nameless chimed in, ‘you’d have known that _me Doxe_ is paying out of his own pocket.’

‘You have fallen off an ostrich, dear Prince,’ Rio laughed again.

Dandolo frowned, adjusting his course. ‘People keep telling me that.’

‘Because you can’t ride ostriches for shit, D,’ Fran noted.

Dandolo huffed. ‘Cut the banter, we are closing in.’

The channel went silent. It wasn’t their first ride.

Dandolo banked his sandsail close to the village, even though it could only be called a village in the loosest term. The sort of nowhere that tended to turn into another Morning Glory with time.

Dandolo got out of his sandsail, checked that his cloak was secured by his throat. He didn’t remove his goggles or the scarf: the storm season just starting, there was already too much dust in the air.

It suited Dandolo just fine.

The village was tucked to a wall of a crater. According to the recon, most of the village was located inside the wall in a system of human-made caves. It even had rails, though trains came here only couple of times a year. Local produce: edible fungi and tomatoes. Water supply: closed-cycle system, cisterns working, but in need of repairs. Population: 35 people.

Main source of revenue: information.

Dandolo’s earpiece was tapped a few times, announcing to him that Nameless’s group split towards the water system. Dandolo and his group entered through the main doors and went right to the bar that served as the village’s meeting place and the place where they entertained guests.

Dandolo took off his goggles, but not his scarf, and eyed the bartender. They looked up with a frown, eyeing visitors. Dandolo let them. There were half a dozen villagers scattered over the small place.

Oh, the scarf, the headgear would narrow his field of vision somewhat.

But people here wouldn’t know that two seasons of training with Nameless and Artair had made it so now he could not only feel the presence of living beings in vicinity, but sense… other things. Aggression. The direction of their attention.

‘What a fine, er, day, friends,’ the bartender chirped, splaying their hands on the countertop.

‘Fine indeed,’ Dandolo replied. He walked closer to them, easing the goggles off his face.

‘Aren’t you late in the season?’

‘We got delayed.’

‘Merchants?’

Dandolo nodded. Prodding questions. He would allow them for now.

The bartender smiled. ‘Buying or selling?’

‘Buying.’ He leaned over the counter. ‘In fact, I’m in need of particular information, and I think you can help me.’

‘Whatever I can do…’

‘You can. I would like to know,’ he put a hand on the bartender’s palm, ‘why you, _sporchi_ , sold my people to the Red Army.’

‘I don’t…’

Dandolo lowered his scarf with his free hand.

The bartender’s face changed, falling slack and pale.

Dandolo nodded. ‘I see you know who I am.’

‘Merchant… Please…’ They tried to get out of his hold, but seasons of pulling sandsails had made Dandolo’s grip inescapable.

Darkness was closing in.

Dandolo leaned to them again, anger scathing—then heard clicks of cocking rifles. He didn’t look away from the bartender when Fran said, ‘If you hurt him in any way, we will ruin your water system and leave.’

‘You’re monsters!’

Dandolo tilted his head, looking into the bartender’s wide eyes. ‘Are we? Aren’t _you_ , for selling innocent people to be slaughtered?!’ His jaws were so tight he had trouble speaking. ‘What did you get for it? Serum? A cut of the cargo? I know that you here are producing more than enough to feed everyone. So what was it? Greed? Vanity? Some merchants insulted you in the past, and you decided to take it out on others?’

‘They threatened us.’

Dandolo turned round. He didn’t let go of the bartender’s hand, bones shifting under his grip.

They stood unarmed unlike their fellow villagers, arms crossed over their chest. Lips thin. ‘They threatened to ruin our water station,’ they said. ‘Just like you. We will yield to you. Like we yielded to them. What choice do we have?’

‘Choice?’ Dandolo turned to them fully, releasing the bartender. ‘You have mushroom knives! Mole harpoons! Hooks, poles, a couple of rifles! Things you use nearly every day.’

‘We drive them off—and what then? They would come again. And again.’

‘Instead, you sell them caravans and hope that they won’t return next time.’

They spread their arms. ‘It’s the only way to appease them. They can appear out of nowhere in the south—because someone razed Morning Glory several years ago.’

Dandolo didn’t reel back—but his face turned numb.

They sighed. ‘The ones who come here… Their usual haunt is an old mine, to the west from here.’

‘We will stay the night,’ Dandolo managed. ‘Pay for everything double price. We’ll leave before sunrise.’

‘As I said, what choice do we have?’

***

Most of them stayed in the village. The Troupe put the villagers at ease somewhat, and bartering helped (they had little use for Serum)—but mostly, Dandolo suspected, listening in to the radio chatter, that it was his absence.

He needed to think.

They needed to send a recon forward.

It was his fault.

His fault that all those caravans venturing into the south in the past few seasons had been mangled with very few traumatised survivors. But he had needed to stop Morning Glory.

And now, here, he had faced the accusation.

Perhaps he should have waited, those years ago. Gathered more allies, more resources, covered not only Morning Glory but the whole of south. Destroyed them all and let those who would seep through starve to death. No mercy.

Fury of Mars. Fury.

He had needed to act quick, back then. They had been a threat.

_You took them out because they took Anton from you._

He didn’t want to face it. He didn’t want to think he had wasted lives just because of a personal grief.

_You took them out because you were angry._

‘You did the right thing.’

Dandolo raised his head. Fran was standing by his ’sail, a small blue lamp on their shoulder. ‘May I?’

Dandolo moved, and Fran got into the gondola. It was a tight fit, but they settled together comfortably, making sure Fran’s metal leg didn’t get stuck in anything.

He missed this.

Under Fran’s cloak, he felt the flexible plates of the Palatial guard armour. Fran was still a Palatial guard—it was that now their sextet and one more sextet were prowling the south and cleaning it of bandits one of two ways.

‘You were so eager to prove to me otherwise these years,’ Dandolo murmured into their headscarf.

‘You are not _always_ right,’ Fran replied.

Dandolo smiled. ‘Thank the spirits.’

‘And reckless as it was, Morning Glory raid was the right thing to do.’

‘Was it, though?’ He turned away from Fran. The crimson darkness was all around them, the wind howling its song. He opened a sail to protect them from dust.

‘What is this sudden penchant for introspection?’ Fran murmured, their arm sliding between Dandolo’s back and the seat.

‘I do think back on my actions, you know.’

‘To no results, obviously.’

‘Maybe I’m just getting older.’

His arm was touched. ‘Think of how much Serum we have saved due to not having to pay them anymore.’

‘And I paid for _that_ in our friend’s life. Paying now with more lives. The wind of that action has yielded a sandstorm.’

‘D…’

He looked at them and squeezed their hand. ‘It’s not about profits.’

Fran laughed, short and without humour. ‘Are you even a merchant anymore, D?’

He glanced over their scars. They were pale lines on their dark face. ‘It was never about profits, Fran. Mars _can_ survive without us, if only barely. What we bring is not goods—it’s connections. We go to the farthest, most forsaken places, and our presence, our visits tell them, “You are not forgotten. You are not alone.” We speak every language, understand every writing system, every calendar. We bring news, gossips, scents, songs of other places. _This_ is what being a travelling merchant is about.’

They were looking at him with a strange expression, and Dandolo almost got ashamed of his outburst—when Fran smiled. ‘I always knew you’d be a good Prince.’

Dandolo looked away, his eyes burning, a lump in his throat. ‘What, you voted for me?’

‘I did.’

Fran turned the light off. The winds were rushing around them, whispering. Hush. Hush.

When Dandolo thought Fran fell asleep, Fran stirred and said, ‘I’m sorry. About Anton.’

He waited, feeling that Fran needed to find their words.

‘I was… selfish. Jealous. Even when he… No matter what, I shouldn’t have attacked him. I nearly _killed_ him, D, it’s that he seems to be such a stubborn bastard that he survived…’ They shuddered, and Dandolo pulled them even closer, wrapping both arms around them.

‘He won’t stop, you know,’ Fran murmured in his shoulder. ‘He had someone who threw themself between him and Nameless’s charge! Maybe now he’s cowed and will keep to Ophir, but he will try to spread, to find us again.’

Dandolo knew it. He closed his eyes, listening to the winds. ‘I’m sorry, too. I still… I care about him, and I hurt you over that.’

‘You are supposed to let people go.’

‘It seems I’m very bad at it.’

Fran shifted, cursed. ‘Spirits, this is uncomfortable.’

Dandolo chuckled. ‘And not even fully loaded.’

‘That’s why I prefer ostriches,’ Fran grumbled.

There was a way to make more room in the gondola, but it would mean getting out. Untangling himself from Fran, and Fran seemed just as reluctant to let go, for all their grumbling.

‘ _Doxe_ Dandolo, the fury of Mars. Who would have thought?’

‘I’m simply _Paon_ Dandolo. Nothing has changed.’

‘And good at twisting the truth, just like any Prince worth their seat. Definitely the right one to vote for.’

He nudged them in the ribs.

***

He had to all but carry Fran out of the gondola when the time of waking came. He managed to usher them to the bar, yawning so widely he worried their jaws might not close, and instructed everyone to get a meal and be prepared.

He left his ’sail for Nameless to pilot and took the hoversail off one of the amas instead. It was fully charged.

‘Going somewhere?’ Nameless asked him over a private channel.

They were too smart for their own good—but Dandolo liked it. ‘We need recon. Promise I won’t start without you.’

‘Acknowledged.’

Dandolo had been hesitant about bringing them into the hunting party, hadn’t wanted to be like Marcello, to use them to fight. But they had been _furious_ when he had told them so, and Dandolo had a burn on the inside of his elbow to remind them of their dedication to protect Noctis.

He kicked the hoversail on and jumped on the board, then took off.

It was pitch-black, three hours before sunrise, the coldest part of the night, the darkness absolute.

He didn’t need to see.

The windows and sand were rushing around. Hush. Hush. Like spices being poured from one bag to another; precursors of storms.

Fury of Mars.

He knew the old mine. It had been abandoned even before the Turmoil, quakes in the area not as frequent as in Arabia Terra, but frequent enough to make mining dangerous. With so many seasons having passed, and storms and quakes, it was probably nothing but ruins now, too dangerous to even use as a hiding place.

But not too dangerous for the Red Army, it seemed.

Wasn’t it his fault that they were so desperate they were ready to hide in an unstable structure that could bury them any moment?..

You are personally responsible for the suffering of others.

Where were they getting water? Buying it in the village? Hunting and draining moles? He had half a mind to set up charges and blow the place up… But two ways to rid of them. Two. He had to give them a chance.

He flew through the darkness until the mine. Until he saw lights. They were going to out themselves with lights blazing but better to not be ambushed like Morning Glory, he supposed.

He avoided coming closer to the lights, surveying from afar. There wasn’t much to survey. He knew how old pre-Turmoil mines were arranged—although he realised he couldn’t remember what kind of mine this one used to be. Didn’t matter, because now the floor plan would have changed significantly.

If he had been the one defending it, he would have scouted it as much as possible, noted all the weak points that could have been dangerous to his people, but could be used in case of a breach. He would have secured several water and provision storages, ammunition supply, and paths out—with a way to collapse the whole thing if it came down to it.

But he was well-rested, well-supplied and able to find his way in complete darkness and dangerous environments, and had been climbing sheer cliffs for seasons.

They probably didn’t have any of that.

He thought that, if they went with frontal attack, the Red Army would simply bring down the mines—while they were inside themselves. They were desperate.

He settled on the hoversail, waiting and thinking how to proceed. When his flotilla arrived, Nameless asked, ‘How will this go, _Doxe_?’

Dandolo was looking at the lights. ‘We drive right forward.’ He glided in front of the door, a torn, mangled thing, so much like Morning Glory’s were right after they had razed the place. No mercy. He cycled through frequencies. There were fifteen people in the mine, at least as far as he could feel it.

He switched to Nameless’s channel. ‘How many?’

‘Eighteen, _Doxe_.’

Eighteen.

He tuned in to the one channel he felt they were using. ‘I know you can hear me and see me. I assume you know who I am and what I am here for.’ He was so tired. The storms were upon him. The crimson darkness was calling for him yet again.

Artair had said, there were ones who had gone into the Labyrinth once and returned and it was enough—but there were ones who went there again and again—until finally, they didn’t come back. The lure of the One with black hands.

There was a claim on his shoulder, still wet and burning just like it had been when he had come to his senses by the Red Gates for the first time, several lives ago.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ The voice was rough and speckled with interference. It had a familiar accent. Abundance, though left long time ago.

‘Just a short answer. Do you yield?’

Silence—but he heard chatter in the background. They probably had only one radio station here, dead most of the time.

‘And what, let you sell us into slavery?’

He had to take a moment to process what he’d just heard—and then another moment to stamp out his fury. ‘Slavery has been banned among the travelling merchants,’ he said very, very evenly.

‘Since when?’

‘Since _me_.’

More background chatter. He felt the sun hover just under the horizon. Ready to unfold its flaming wings, enveloping every thing.

‘Then what? You take us to Aurora for trial? To Abundance, for one of their _rehabilitation_ camps?’

He didn’t like the sound of that, but he could ask later. ‘No. I will give you money. Enough to start a new life.’

Silence. Absolute silence. Well, wouldn’t be the first time.

‘You fell off a sandsail and hit your head, merchant?’

That reaction wasn’t unfamiliar either.

‘No. You killed merchants, so I wouldn’t advise joining caravans—although you could join mine. But, aside from this piece of advice, I will impose no conditions.’

‘What’s stopping us from killing you now?’

‘The fact that there’s only eighteen of you, and thirty five of us, one of which is a Technomancer. And if you do manage to kill us, other groups _will_ hunt you down. No mercy.’

‘What if we _don’t_ yield?’

It was going on for long. But it was necessary. The darkness around them started turning red. ‘Then I will leave,’ he said patiently. ‘There are others. My people, and they are angry. They will find you even if you move, and they won’t ask questions. This is your only chance.’

He waited. And waited.

Two ways.

‘We yield, merchant.’

He closed his eyes. His shoulder stopped tingling. ‘Good. You should leave the mine. The structure is unsound.’

‘Are you going to bring it down?’

‘Yes, it’s too dangerous but too tempting to use as a hiding place.’

After setting up charges to the mine and making sure it would go down properly, they took the Red Army—or perhaps, now _former_ members of the Red Army—back to the village. The villagers stared, but didn’t comment. The Army kept together, and Dandolo, now that dust and wind wasn’t occupying his attention, took a good look at them. They were as bad as he had imagined: old ruined clothes, thin faces, haunted eyes. Skin rough and sore from sand and dehydration. The leader was mangy, and everyone else kept behind them.

Dandolo set up by one of the tables, spreading out Serum. ‘If any of you wants to be dropped at a particular destination, just say so. We will organise it.’

The leader snorted, eyeing the Serum carefully. Eighteen chips. ‘And who’s paying for all this, Fury-of-Mars?’

Dandolo sighed at the moniker. He hoped it wouldn’t stick. ‘I am. A few fellow merchants who share my views.’

The leader pocketed his Serum. There was ruddy colour on their cheeks. ‘And your views are “Give money left and right”?’

He looked at them without unwavering. ‘Everyone deserves another chance. With very few exceptions.’

They shook their head. ‘Morning Glory was an exception?’

‘In a way. But my views changed.’

The leader looked away. They seemed uncertain. ‘I don’t want charity.’ But they pocketed the Serum, so Dandolo had hope they wouldn’t reject it after all.

‘This is not charity. This is me placing trust in you. Placing hope in you.’

They snorted. ‘Worse than charity, then. ‘You are naive.’

‘I don’t care what you think of me for it,’ he said calmly. ‘But if you don’t want it to be “charity”, let us make it a deal. Tell me about those rehabilitation camps.’

Their face scrunched up, and they were silent for a long time. ‘It’s not fucking rehabilitation. It’s called that, yes, and it used to be just a fancy name for prison… But now that the ASC has a new leadership… When were you in Ophir the last time?’

‘Personally, long time ago. But merchants visit Ophir all the time, and we exchange information. I heard about the ASC tightening security.’ He kept his hands in front of himself, his body relaxed, his voice calm.

‘Tightening security. Right. Spying on the citizens, more like. War is coming, merchant. War is coming, and they are cracking down on crime, they say.’ They leaned to him. ‘They send _kiddies_ down there, you know. Kiddies who join gangs because they know no better, because they have no choice. Rogue kiddies, you know? Unfortunate enough to be left without parents, unfortunate to be born to Rogues… Just kiddies, merchant.’ They shook their head. Fat tears were rolling into their beard. ‘You are hunting us? Why don’t you hunt _them_?’

‘If you know where those camps are, show me on the map.’

***

‘You can’t seriously consider a full-scale raid on Abundance territory.’

Due to staying longer than initially agreed to, they helped fix the water system in the village and helped with the fungi harvest. There were ninety people more than usual—nearly all of Dandolo’s hunting parties. Fury of Mars.

Rio—both Rios, the brother and sister—were here, too. And the brother was proving to be difficult.

He slammed his hands on the desk that Dandolo had rented for himself, maps and plans spread over it.

Dandolo was unmoved by the Rio brother’s worry. Perhaps he was getting older, perhaps he was getting insensitive. Give them what they need, not always what they want, he had told Anton a lifetime ago when Anton had asked about vagaries of leadership. Dandolo couldn’t say what they needed anymore. Maybe Noctis had made a mistake in choosing him the Prince.

‘This would mean war, Dandolo!’ Rio hissed.

‘Not if we do it properly and discreetly.’ He would go anyway, with half a hundred people, with ten people. Alone.

He would go because he had to.

‘And how are you going to do it? Free the prisoners, burn down the facility? Mikhail said it’s well-guarded! There’s no possibility of making it look like a bandit raid! And if anyone, any _one_ gets away, we have no way of masking the sandsails, and everyone knows who flies them! The Ocio will lead them to us and we will lose trade an the city!’

Dandolo let the Rio brother exhaust himself and pace. ‘We must return. Bring it to vote.’

There was no time. They would roll with the storm. A tap on his earpiece drew his attention. Nameless, using Binary to send a message.

_He agreed._

Dandolo kept his face neutral. ‘Summon everyone to the bar.’ He got up and went outside. Waiting. He covered his mouth with scarf. Talking in the howling wind was impossible, so he tapped to Nameless. _‘Completely?’_

_‘Yes. Already gathering resources. Will be here in three days. Doxe?’_

_‘Yes?’_

_‘What if he hadn’t agreed?’_

_‘I would have found another way.’_

He felt his group filling the bar. Let them talk and wonder. Went back inside. It was full to bursting, barely able to contain all Noctians, the former Red Army members, and some villagers. He stood before them, looked them over slowly. Meeting angry, hesitant gazes—and yet, determined, too. Fran gave him a small nod.

‘You know what I intend to do,’ Dandolo said. ‘It is not a question of whether I am going to do it or not. It’s a question of who is going with me.’ Fran smiled a little. Dandolo wondered whether they thought of the other instance when he had asked the question he was asking now.

‘It won’t be like bandit raids. It won’t be like Morning Glory. We have learnt a lot since then, too. We have allies. But I cannot demand this of you, and I won’t. If you don’t want to do it, if you are unsure, you may leave. I won’t ask for your reasons. There will be no bad blood between us because of this, I promise. The only thing I would ask of those who wish to leave: let me do it. Do not interfere. Who is with me?’

The Rio brother shook his head. ‘I don’t think anyone is going to bail now, Dandolo. If only to see how exactly you are going to do it.’

He looked over anyway. Nobody moved. He nodded. ‘Thank you.’

‘ _Now_ are you going to explain how we are going to do it?’

He smiled. ‘Now—yes, I will. Not all of us are going to use sandsails.’

The Rio sister frowned. ‘We don’t have enough ostriches, and anyway they are not very good in the storm.’

Fran snorted. ‘You can bet I’m not riding ostriches into the storm.’

Dandolo’s smile widened. He felt cruel. Fury of Mars. ‘We will ride a train. Several light sandsails will provide recon. The rest will be strapped on the platforms as cargo.’

‘Where will you get a train?’

‘We already have one.’ He lifted his hand to quell questions for now. ‘Our adversary would most definitely be trained—but trained against riots and bandits. We have weapons and armour, communications and, most importantly, the storm on our side and the element of surprise. Be prepared, however: such facilities attract a certain type of people for wardens. They won’t hesitate before using lethal force.’

‘We won’t either,’ Mikhail said. 

‘You will allow _them_ to join us?’ the Rio brother asked.

‘And not only us. Many others will join, too.’ Mikhail looked at Dandolo. ‘And then our debt to you will be considered void, merchant.’

‘If it allows you to accept help, yes,’ he nodded.

***

The rails were somewhat misused, and with winds picking up it was not ideal conditions—but Dandolo was sure the train would arrive on time. It arrived in three days—a giant heavy thing, constrained by the rails unlike the freedom of movement the sandsails brought. Headlights like six eyes of a strange beast.

The door of the engine slid to the side, and the radio pinged. ‘If I told you that you are one of the craziest bastards I’ve ever known, merchant,’ a familiar voice drawled, though the accent had changed somewhat, ‘you would probably believe me.’ The hunter, a huge blanket-scarf draped over his shoulders, neck, covering his mouth, jumped out into the sound.

Instead of answering with words, Dandolo pulled Tenacity in a tight embrace. And Tenacity closed his arms over him.

They packed quickly enough—the villagers giving them some of their harvest for food. Pilots were reluctant to leave their sandsails strapped to platforms and covered with tarp, but the crew and Dandolo assured them the ’sails would be fine.

Dandolo didn’t voice his own unease. Being huddled inside a car was not something he appreciated, even though Tenacity and Fran’s company kept him from going mad with boredom. They went over plans over and over, even ran a few exercises in the train cars, their confines a good imitation of corridors and choke points the camp had. Nameless decided to use a combination of a gun and a knife: the camp environments wouldn’t allow for staff movement.

Dandolo waited. The storm was him, and he knew the storm.

Storms were tricky. Anyone who ever went out of a dome knew that. Any traveller knew that. Storms interfered with communication and navigation. That was why nobody travelled during the storms, not even trains.

When they were close to the camp, the crimson darkness was nearly absolute. They were moving without the headlights, just by tools and maps and combined sense of Dandolo and Nameless.

The camp wasn’t waiting for anyone.

‘Turn the scramblers on,’ he commanded.

It blanketed the radio with static. Just the storm.

It meant they couldn’t have communications either—but they had Nameless for emergencies, with their electric messages.

The train stopped, silent under the blanket of howling winds.

Geared up, they went out into the night, keeping close to each other. The camp was a black mass in front of them.

The fence was overloaded by Nameless, and they cut through it with ease, working almost by touch alone. Crossed a small courtyard, with towering masses probably being rovers. They found a door, and again Nameless overloaded the grid to let the pass.

Dandolo hold his knife in one hand and a gun in the other. He recalled what he had instructed everyone before they set out.

_Save everyone you can. Kill the bastards. No mercy._

‘Fury of Mars,’ he whispered. And charged.

***

They overpowered wardens quickly. They were simply not prepared for an organised forced springing onto them out of the storm, used to fighting in close quarters.

Then they encountered the first holding cells, and whom—what—they found there had lit up Dandolo’s people like a blaze. There was no stopping it now.

Perhaps with time and patient care some of the prisoners would be able to return to normal life again—but for others there was no hope anymore. Dandolo eased their suffering with no remorse for his actions.

It was over quickly, or maybe his perception of time had changed. Only last sweeps were left. His people and Dandolo himself hoped there was someone else left to safe.

He was moving down the corridor, Tenacity, Mikhail and a few others with him. Opened a door. And lowered his knife.

The room looked liked a classroom of sorts. A projector screen on one wall, computer terminals against another. Banners, propaganda posters.

Only, the chairs had straps on the armrests, and all chairs were connected with cables on the floor, and there were… prongs… He didn’t want to know what they were for.

Only, people were strapped to those chairs. They weren’t important enough to unstrap them and give them at least a chance to get away in attack. The wardens were saving their own lives.

They wouldn’t succeed.

Dandolo looked over the room. He feared to step inside and scare those thin, emaciated people even more. There were adults.

There were _kids_.

He did step inside, sheathing his knife. Some faces, some eyes didn’t follow him. They didn’t seem to notice him at all.

The closest to him occupied chair had a child. Eyes big with fear, but at least on him. He couldn’t even tell how old they were, so thin and starved they looked, head shaved. He stepped to them, holding his hands up. ‘I won’t hurt you, and won’t let anyone else hurt you, you understand?’ He said it both in Upper and Lower Abundancean, keeping his voice calm and quiet. He knelt before the child’s chair. ‘I’m going to free you from restraints, all right?’

They watched him, and then they nodded. Gaze darting to the door, the others standing there. Dandolo felt anger in them like a burn, and his left shoulder was heavy.

‘They are with me,’ Dandolo explained. He put his hands on the restraints, cold metal, and pulled, twisting and breaking it. The wrist underneath was rubbed raw. Then he broke the other restraint, broke off the contraption over the child’s head. ‘What is your name?’

The child’s lips were dry. ‘Niesha.’

‘Niesha. My name is Dandolo. We’ll get you out of here. All of you.’ He gave them a flask—but their gaze fell on his knife. Then on him.

‘Did you kill all of them?’ Niesha asked in a quiet voice.

And he understood. Suddenly, he understood.

The winds were howling in his mind. The camp was surrounded by crimson darkness. He touched his earpiece, messaging to Nameless. _‘Do we have living wardens?’_

_‘Yes.’_

‘Not all,’ he told to the child.

And gave Niesha his knife.

***

‘My Prince?’

‘It will contain a pond and a whole water system, so I would like to remind you to be especially careful—and please don’t joke that you would feed it ostriches, the guards wouldn’t understand it.’ He left the worm-hunters snickering. By the spirits, they were like children. But he was grateful that they had waited for him to return home, waited for him to unearth his plans.

He had returned with more people than he had left with. Much more people.

Tenacity had refused to go with them. He had had other things to do. Other reckless someone to look after, according to him. Dandolo had been glad to have met him again, to have hunted with him.

They had let Artair go into the Shadow at the closing of summer. Watching Nameless go up on the funeral tower to say goodbye to his mentor, Dandolo had known he would have to let another friend go soon.

‘Папа!’

He pulled himself out of his thoughts.

It had started as a joke, Niesha calling him ‘Dad’ in a tone of a petulant child—she was anything but, wincing from every sudden sound, gripping her knife—the knife he had given her—at any sudden movement.

He had started calling her ‘ _fia_ ’ in retaliation. And then, ‘ _lodola_ ’. When she had started singing during the still-going Carnival. She had run away from the sound of drums, and he had had to look for her throughout the whole Palace—but then she had sung for him. And he had found her best musicians and teachers.

‘Папа! Вот ты где!’

He looked up at her, smiling despite himself. Despite what was coming. Her hair had grown out, beautiful, oiled with orange oil; her skin had dropped the death pallor. She was wearing a crimson cloak over sand-coloured pants and tunic. She had enough dresses for her performances stored in a chest, and jewels, too—bracelets he had given her. All of it just gilt, to draw attention away from when it was unwelcome.

‘I was rather hoping that by hiding in the Palace I would delay your departure,’ he admitted, only half-joking.

‘I’ve been looking for you for half an hour already,’ she pouted. Then her expression got softer. ‘Nameless is leaving with us, although they don’t tell me where they are going.’

He closed his eyes briefly. ‘Yes. I knew they would leave.’

‘Is it because of Master Artair?’

‘Perhaps. They have their own reasons. Otherwise they wouldn’t be leaving. Well. Let me see you away.’

He walked with her, trying to not let his heart grow heavy.

‘I don’t want you to be sad,’ she said, as though reading his mind. ‘You need a spy who can move between towns, between Corporations, and get where merchants are not allowed to.’

‘I know, _fia_ ,’ he sighed.

‘And I will return before the storms.’

One part of him hoped she would—but another wanted to tell her to not return. To try to find another life.

‘Return and sing to Noctis.’

‘And to my Prince.’

They went to the Docks. The caravan that would take Niesha away for the whole season—or maybe more—was ready, with Nameless, dressed for all the world as one of travellers—if not for Technomantic gloves—standing by one of the sandsails. Niesha smiled to them and went to have final arrangements.

‘I shall leave all my possessions to the city,’ Nameless said.

Dandolo nodded. ‘It will wait for you in the Palace storage.’

‘I’d rather it be used. Especially the ’sails. I give them to the Palace to fly, for now.’

Dandolo nodded again. His throat was tight. He had found words for Niesha—but she intended to return. And Nameless…

‘War is coming, Dandolo,’ they said, their voice melodious, but different from the Noctian lilt. ‘Maybe it won’t break out for a year, two years, perhaps. But it will come. And I need to check on my other family.’

Dandolo shook his head. ‘You don’t have to explain yourself.’

‘I do.’ They smiled. ‘I will return one day.’

‘If you can.’

‘You need allies, Prince. But more than that, you need friends.’

He tilted his head. He couldn’t not answer Nameless’s smile. ‘Are you lecturing the Prince of Noctis, Technomancer?’

‘If nobody thinks of doing it, then Noctis will fall. Fare thee well, Dandolo.’

He was ready to say the same—but then reached for Nameless. ‘Wait. I need to return something to you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Something you might need, out there.’ He leaned forward, steadying himself on their shoulder, and kissed them on the forehead, lips tingling from contact. ‘Fare thee well, Nameless. Fly in the Shadows, Integrity.’


	12. Chapter 12

Time flew. There was always something to do, people to meet, things to fix. There was the tweaking of laws, the monetary reform. He’d expected Noctis to not need him anymore as the Prince after the raids had been over—but with the rumours of war… First rumours, then reports from merchants and spies. Niesha’s reports, from Ophir, from Shadowlair. Missives from Mikhail and their friends. Rare messages from Tenacity. Messages from Ian, now Great Master of Abundancean Technomancers.

All of them were bothering Dandolo.

In letters they were exchanging with Anton, they didn’t talk about business—but war was in them, too: a member of the family Anton had built for himself being drafted; medics being withdrawn out of the Slums. The ASC tightening security even further.

More ‘rehabilitation’ camps.

Dandolo feared that the next letter from Anton might not come—or come from someone else. _Your talpa has been captured, tried and sent for rehabilitation._

He wondered whether the raid had been enough.

It wasn’t enough in the long term—but lives had been saved. Maybe that was enough. Many of them had been adjusting to Noctis. To being free.

Old treatises of merchants long gone considered the subject of war between Guilds. The chaos of war allowed to get under scrutiny. And everyone needed supplies. Everyone needed an intermediary.

Guilds could destroy each other for all he cared—but there were people there. _His_ people. And strangers. Kids. Those for whom various factors had converged to place them into the turmoil, defenceless, their lives in hands of the uncaring.

He couldn’t stand aside and say he was simply keeping it neutral.

He couldn’t tell Fran that it was never about profits—and then do nothing.

_You are personally responsible._

And when the war started, what would stop any Guild from capturing or ‘arresting’ his merchants—as ‘spies’ or under any other excuse—and torturing them for information?

He couldn’t sleep. From these thoughts, these worries. From being unable to go out with caravans—but living in the caravan time. He tried to not get into the bottle again—and so, when anxiety or insomnia claimed him, he went to Sofia’s farm, played with her son or worked; went to the growing garden in the Palace. Climbed the Palace’s walls, scaled the canyon.

Tried not to look at the Red Gates either—but the call was dull. Noctis needed him more.

One night he received a message from Niesha. He couldn’t sleep, and the fact that it was addressed not to the _Doxe_ , but to _Paon_ , worried him more than anything. At least this way it didn’t require him to have three members of the Council to be present when he opened it.

He kept it until the Palace went quiet, and then went up on the beams of the top level of the Palace, right over the gallery and his balcony.

He turned on the small light on his shoulder, and opened the letter. It was actually two pieces of paper, one new, one frayed and old. He opened the new one first. It was written in a mix of Lower Abundancean, Binary, and the version of Nocto that only Dandolo’s caravaners used.

_Папа!_

_A scumbag is breaking the law of the city. Your law. There’s a boy, goes by name of Lucky. Should arrive with Fiorello’s caravan. Marcello would say he was employed and all but a son to him, but it’s not true! The bastard tricked him and slaved him for ten years. L. himself would deny everything. Too proud. Enclosed is the letter proving that Marcello scammed him and enslaved him. Took it from the bastard while he wasn’t looking._

_I believe you will do the right thing._

_Fury of Mars._

_-Lodola_

He folded the letter carefully, opened the old one. He read it again and again until every line, every crease of paper was impressed in his mind. Then he folded it, too, and put both letters into the folds of his tunic. Looked down to the guest hall, all the way under him. He got up and started climbing down.

First, he went to the Docks, to confirm that both Fiorello’s and Marcello’s primary caravans, with both merchants, were in the city.

‘Going somewhere, _me Doxe_?’

He looked at Fran. They held a ostrich brush in one hand, a flask in another.

‘What are you doing here at this hour?’

‘I can ask you the same. Can’t sleep again?’ They looked him over with narrowed eyes.

He saw no point in denying it. ‘I’ve got things to do. Doxe things.’

Fran straightened up.

Dandolo nodded. ‘Bring together your sextet. We are to visit one of the merchants.

***

The house was closed by a door—of course, it was winter, and it was quite cold at night. Dandolo didn’t feel the cold, however. He felt the tingling in his left shoulder.

Fran pounded on the door, announced themselves. Dandolo waited. He could be very, very patient. He had no weapon except for his knife, unlike the guards with rifles at the ready and spears, Fran keeping one hand on their horn. Dandolo didn’t need a rifle to deal with this.

‘What purpose brings yo—’ Marcello’s face appeared in the crack—and he reeled back.

Good. He saw Dandolo, then.

The guards opened the door and marched inside, and Dandolo after them. They spread over the small antechamber.

Dandolo didn’t look around. He looked only at Marcello. Years had not been kind to the merchant: even being younger than Dandolo, he looked much older. His stubble was patchy on his chin.

‘What right do you have to intrude in my property?’ Marcello asked. All indignation.

‘This is property of the city, as everything is,’ Dandolo reminded. His face was tight. He wished he could smile—amiably—but he supposed he was only capable of a grimace of rage now.

He made a step towards Marcello—and Marcello stepped back.

‘You think I wouldn’t find out?’ Dandolo said. It was hard to keep his voice from quivering. ‘In the end, you think you’d be able to hide it from me forever?’

‘Wh-what are you talking about, Dandolo?’

Dandolo did smile. Marcello paled even more.

‘Have you forgotten what I told you those years ago? I haven’t.’

‘You have no right!’

‘Have I?’ Dandolo tilted his head. ‘You broke the law, Marcello. The one law that has only one punishment.’

‘You have no proof!’

He took Niesha’s letter out of his tunic, his hands trembling from rage, and shoved it to Marcello’s chest. ‘This is the proof.’

Marcello frowned, catching the letter, looked up. ‘But this… This is gibberish, I can’t read that!’

‘And this? Can’t you read this one?’ He opened the other, the one sent with the little Andrew. He snatched it away when Marcello tried to grab it. ‘No, my friend. This goes to the Council and then to the boy. And you? You are going with us.’ He grabbed Marcello’s arm and yanked him up, then started dragging him to the door.

‘You have no right!’

‘You keep telling me about rights, mine and yours. But I think you have forgotten about your obligations. _I_ haven’t. And my duty to Noctis will be done. We are going on a walk, Marcello. To see the sunrise.’

***

Later, when the sun was rolling under the horizon, Dandolo strode to Fiorello’s house, a sack in his hands. it wasn’t particularly heavy, and the reek was… bad, but Dandolo hadn’t thought to conceal it.

The merchant himself was sitting on the threshold, smoking a cigar—and he got to his feet. ‘My Prince? What are you— What is that _smell_?!’

Dandolo smiled apologetically. ‘I am sorry, _fradelo_. Is Lucky here?’

‘He is. I, uh. I’ll call for him. To the outside.’

Dandolo kept his smile. ‘Yes. I think it would be best.’

He waited. The boy appeared, thin, eyes narrowed. His left sleeve was sewn carefully. ‘My Prince?’

‘Lucky, isn’t it? I won’t hold you for long. If you need help—’

The boy moved away, as though hiding his left side, eyes narrow and cold. ‘I don’t need your charity. My Prince.’

Dandolo kept calm and neutral. ‘I’m not offering charity. It’s your own life. But justice, I will see done.’ He thrust the bag into Lucky’s hands, and the boy held it tight, but blanched. ‘What _is_ it?’

Dandolo waved. ‘Why won’t you open it?’

The boy eyed him with suspicion, then put the bag down on the bench and pulled out the cord. And swiftly looked away, throwing an arm over his mouth.

Dandolo waited. The boy looked at him with wide eyes. ‘What should I do with it?!’

Dandolo shrugged. ‘Whatever you want. Clean it and make it into a cup. Throw it out. He doesn’t deserve the Noctian burial, and his body will never get one. Oh! And another thing that rightfully belongs to you, I believe.’ He pulled the old letter out of his tunic and gave it to the boy. Lucky opened it with a trembling hand, and his eyes glistened.

Dandolo looked away and started walking. He had so many things to do. Make sure Marcello’s assets went where they would be used best.

‘My Prince!’

He stopped, then looked over his shoulder.

‘I…’ Andrew cast his gaze down, biting his lip, and did not continue.

Dandolo smiled. ‘Don’t forget, there’s a Council meeting next week, merchant.’


	13. Chapter 13

The war broke out as it was bound to do. Some of Dandolo’s correspondents had gone silent—with a final farewell or without it—others maintained a line to him. He had found new allies, new friends. Had negotiated an alliance with the Mutant Valley.

Anton’s letters had been filling with sarcasm and dripping with bitterness, Niesha’s—with concern. No missives from Tenacity. No word from Nameless. Anton’s Vory had been getting close to Noctis.

Then, the warfare was over—but not the war. It simply found other words to disguise itself with.

Then, that young Technomancer, Zachariah—‘a diamond in the rough’, as Anton had called him. Zachariah had come—asking for help, and he had turned out to be just as Niesha and Anton had described him.

_…I’d like to make him a part of my family, but his loyalty is to his first one—and you value loyalty very much. I think it will bring him ruin, as it always does to everyone, with how eager the ASC is to get to him…_

By the Shadow and the _Ocio_ , Zachariah was a child, and Dandolo hated to see him wrapped tight in a military uniform. He helped Zachariah however he could, pushing forward a plan in case the ASC came too close to Noctis in search of him.

Dandolo missed Nameless and missed Artair.

Zachariah had family still stuck in Ophir, and Dandolo knew they had to be extracted—or they would perish, in one of the ‘rehabilitation’ camps or just… nowhere. He wasn’t going to let people disappear.

***

He leaned forward from his perch on the upper level as they extracted themselves from the sandsails and the rover, in the dark grey of their uniform. Light catching on Abundance pin on their breast. Some had their staves collapsed, others extended. Frantic, huddling together, looking around.

He tried to decide what to think of them as the Prince. Allies. Assets. Partners.

But what would _Dandolo_ think of them? Soldiers. Living weapons, twisted and honed for a single purpose.

Refugees.

Zach helped one of the sit down on the ama. Dome-dwellers, they didn’t think of looking up—or were too tense to notice—

One of them did look up then. Head grey, but not white, thin like the lot of them.

Dandolo had a sudden urge to jump right off his perch, just to show off. He climbed down, though, looked over them. Smiled. ‘Zachariah, the great hero of his brothers, has returned triumphant! Amazing! Against all odds! Against a city! Bravo!’ He took a glance over them again. Some faces were vaguely familiar, but changed by suffering. He was aware of the sharp gaze of the one who looked up. The one he was expecting to meet again, wanted to meet, wasn’t there. ‘But… I don’t see… anyone resembling the Great Master. Is he…’ He couldn’t finish the sentence. Perhaps Ian had been taken to a different place and they simply…

‘Dead,’ Zachariah said, his face a terrible mask of grief. ‘He sacrificed himself so we could get out.’

Dandolo offered condolences and advice, but a part of him was distant. He supposed that was how Ian would have wanted to die: fighting for his family and not on some distant field of war.

Dandolo mourned not the death, but the meeting that never happened.

He busied himself with making arrangements for the Technomancers, calling for the _medeghi_ because many of them needed medical attention.

And when he ran out of things to do, it was already late night, and the Palace was mostly empty. He went to his balcony, dismissed the guards—and got up on the beams. His city was under and before him, and he felt alone. It wasn’t the end and wasn’t the beginning, and he would go on—but maybe he hadn’t learnt to let go and would never learn.

‘Prince Dandolo?’

He looked down at the balcony. A lone figure was outlined by the blue on their shoulder. It seemed to be the one with sharp features, the one who had looked up.

‘Here,’ Dandolo called.

‘What are you doing… up there?’

‘Thinking.’ He jumped down onto the banister of the gallery then walked to his balcony, moved off the banister and perched on it. ‘You should rest, Master…’

‘Melvin. Melvin Mancer.’

Dandolo remembered pieces of Ian’s letters. A major, a formidable fighter, loyal brother to his kindred. Now, he looked thin and grey with grief. ‘Master Melvin.’

‘I’m afraid I cannot sleep,’ he said. The light was a small vial on his left shoulder—a part of the uniform. No Abundance pin, though. Not anymore. ‘I’m not even sure…’ He ran a hand through his hair, front to back. ‘Not even sure why I got here. I thought you…’ He looked at Dandolo. ‘Will you allow us to mourn?’

He tilted his head, spreading his arms. ‘Of course. Nobody will prevent you from doing it however you like, I give you my word.’ He moved, though there was plenty of room. ‘Sit down! You look unsteady on your feet.’

Melvin hesitated—and Dandolo took a guess at the reason for it. He wished there was more light. He wanted to know the colour of Melvin’s eyes. ‘I’m not a Dowser, Master Melvin. I’m not…’ He shook his head, threw a braid over his shoulder. ‘I’m not untouchable. I’m just… one of the _tangata hau_. A merchant and a pilot.’

Melvin’s face softened, and he lowered himself on the banister, stretches out his legs. ‘I’m sorry, Prince. It is all… So much. We’ve lost so many, and now we are here, and everything is strange…’ He ran a hand through his hair again.

Dandolo watched his profile. ‘The first people of Noctis were not only merchants—they were seeking a refuge. We wouldn’t ask you to leave your traditions, your _identity_ behind. Noctis would have been poorer for that. They are marks that single us out—but they are also marks by which we find our way…’ He huffed and leaned back over the drop to the guest hall. ‘I am sorry. The night must be affecting me. I don’t sleep well.’

‘I don’t either.’ Melvin was looking at him.

Dandolo smiled. ‘Whenever you wish, you can come to me, and we will share our sleeplessness. Tell each other stories, perhaps, like my ancestors did in the olden times. And perhaps Noctis will become… closer to you.’

Melvin ducked his head. The blue light made him look ethereal—but Dandolo felt his presence sharply, like a storm. Real and close. ‘I hope it will. Dandolo.’


	14. Epilogue

_Rico Paon_ Dandolo lived for one hundred fifty six seasons, and when his time had come, the Prince of Noctis and Melvin the Corvo, his husband, hand in hand, went into the Labyrinth once more.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks and hugs are being sent to the Spiders server people. Without you, this story might not have happened at all. I love you all and I'm grateful for all your support.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Children of Noctis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17408333) by [Salmaka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmaka/pseuds/Salmaka)




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